The Journal of Historical Review

This Issue:
Dr. Robert Faurisson
-

Analysis of t h e A n n e Frank Diary

Dr. Serban Andronoscu

Tlzc Holoctrzrst and Romania

Dr. Charles E. Wober

The Six Million Thesis-Clri

Samuel E. Konkin III

Bono?

ElSalvador: The War to Come

Dr. M u t i n A. Larson

Wlzrrtever Happened to the Dend Sen Scrolls?

Volume Three, Nurn ber Two

Summer 1982

Tho Journal of Historical Roviow is published qunrterly by the Institute for Historical Review. P.O. Box 1306, Torrance, California 90505, United States of America. Subscription prices aro os follows: One year, $30; two years, $50: throe years, $70or the equivalent in f o r o i ~ ncurrency. Foreign subscribors must ridd$5 if paying by romittuncedrawn on a foroigri bonk. For domestic first class delivery add $5 per year. For overseas air delivery add $12 per year. Quuntity subscription and bulk issue rrito~ nvnilnblo on rnquoat. Approprinto mnnriscripta nro wnlcorned by tho editor, but must be accompanied by roturn postago.

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CONTENTS

A Note From The Editor

With the recent (second) fire-bombing of the IHR offices, one could say that this-our first 1 2 8 page Journal of Historical Review-has been launched with a real bang! Our gain is substantial and lasting. That of the "Jewish Defenders" w a s but a moment of typical destructive glee. IIow invidious t11o minds must bo t h r ~ perpetrate or even t sympathize with these juvenile, frantic acts of cowardly violonce. Aro they capuble of perceiving the dnmage they're doing to their very own causus belli? Or is that their unannounced intention? When Revisionists reek havoc on the opposition, we a t least take the civilized route of open debate. That, in fact, is one of the rnoro ro~onorr~livo qur~litios tho litoroture we m ~ k ~ v ~ i l n b l e . of e Typically, though, this approach carries little weight with tho unsocial-minded who can only screech in turbulent protest, slander, and toss explosives in the night. But bombs don't obliterate truth. They only serve to ignite the quest for it. Threats a n d public demonstrations of victimitis won't frighten or emote the facts away. Smears and calculated men. dacity can't negate the inescapable conclusions of honest researchers. No, their truculence isn't working so well. The simple and total media blackout of years ago was a f a r more effective device, And we say this even a t the risk of having the suggestion taken seriously. But it's too late to revert, we think, ~ n we might just d have open warfare on our hands, no doubt to make history safe for democracy. But in the meantimo we have a new a n d greater Journal of Misloriccll Hoviow lo i~ilroduco. Dr. Robert Faurisson is with us again. We think you'll find the loug-uwuilotl lrrl~~vlulio~lI ~ Ho x l o r ~ ~ i v o on tho Anne Frank of I work Dinry a s potent ns it is pure joy to read. Com1)1imorlIi1i~ clro ~ o v o r rof ltho pnpors delivered a t the IlioI ~ IHR's nnnunl conference lnst November: Dr. Weber offers his insights into the benofits uccruing to the non-Jewish propagators of the extermination thesis; Dr. Andronescu writes on the purnpod-up IIolocausl stntistics nttributed to his native Romania: Dr. Larson gives us some very interesting background on the Dead Sea Scrolls: and Sam Konkin looks a t the w a r to come in El Salvador. Let us know what you think.

Correspondence

MIRACLE AT MA JDANEK? The Majdanek "gas chambers" a r e no longer a mystery. Finally, after 3 talks with the Majdanek director, Mr. Edward Dziadosz, and the custos, Madam Henryka Telesz, it has a t last been admitted that the "gas chambers" a r e not authentic. They were built and set in order after the war. Dziadosz informed us that the "gas chambers" were erected after the w a r on the basis of witnessess' accounts. Who these witnesses a r e he has never told us and most likely never will. When we spoke to him for the first time in 1978 he could not give us even one person in Poland who had witnessed the gassings, so we c a n just imagine what kind of "witnesses" his "witnesses" really are. While we were a t Majdanek this year, we went into one of the "gas chambers" to study them closely and take additional detailed photographs. The area is closed off, but a s before, we managed to sneak in. It so happened that while we were inside the "gas chambers," the custos, Madam Telesz, came strutting along with a West German group she was "guiding." Attentively, we listened to her telling her "true" story. We had to press our bodies tightly against the wall, lest the poople and tho custos herself would notice us 8s they were gazing into the "gns cllambor." 'l'llis "gus cl~unlbur"by t l ~ o way is onu of Ilia two with 1110 holes on the ceiling where it is claimed Zyklon B w a s discharged. Not u word was mentioned by Telesz that this building had been altered after the w a r but she made it out a s if everything w a s authentic. She even went so f a r a s to fool the tourists into believing that inside this particulnr "gas chamber," people were also shot, and that the bullet holes from these events were clearly visible on the wall. Why such shootings did not also take place in the other "gas chambers," only she herself and her fellow Exterminationists would know. Evidently these holes were also made by the Majdanek, Hollywood stage artists and, of course, all based on some mysterious "witnesses." During a n animated discussion in the summer of 1981 between myself, Mr. Edward Dziadosz and the custos Madam Henryka Telesz, a rather interesting thing happened which illustrates the point nicely how our rivals a r e using tress a s evidence for extermination. Being unable to give us any proof of deliberate extermination at Majdanek, Madam Telesz, who was visibly shaken, retorted that the evidence for deliberate extermination was clearly proven by the fact the the Germans had planted trees. For my own sake, I just could not catch her reasoning, for if the planting of trees gave clear evidence of extermination, then anything can prove extermination. At any rate, I asked her: "Do you mean that the Germans planted trees here a t Majdanek to cover up all the traces of their crimes?" "No, no, but a t those other places," Telesz said.

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"What places?" I asked her. Unable to give me a n answer and as she, by this time, was thoroughly confused, I decided to help her. "Perhaps you mean such places as Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka?" "Yes, yes," she nodded back to me. I then told her straight in her face: "Dear Madam, we have made tests of those tress and they are no older than 20 years. and using your logic that would mean it was the Poles who did the exterminating, in that, I assume, it must have been the Poles who planted those trees. Or are you suggesting that these camps were first liberated in the 1960's?" In the voice of an utterly defeated person she managed to reply: "NO-well," and by this time she probably wished she had never brought up the matter about the final, clear evidence, those trees which by some strange fate constitute the absolute proof of mass extermination. Ditlieb Felderer Taby. Sweden
,

COMMENTS ON LAST ISSUE

With respect to The lournal, issue for Spring, 1982, Mr. Richard Landwehr's detailed letter is excellent. One wishes the same could be said for the most recent letter of Dr. Wayland D. Smith. For one so easily irritated, a s is Dr. Smith, how surprising is his contented purr on the subject of "psycho-history." Except for its ostentatious jargon, there is nothing new in this latest "discipline." Everything in Dr. Stein's original article (Winter, 1980) can be fully explained by common sense and without resorting to the unhealthy and convoluted obsession with sex. Dr. Stein and Dr. Smith both stress the importance of empathy in understanding. Empathy, in fact, is of little or no consequence. Understanding requires like-mindedness, not empathy. Like-mindedness means that the alien mind is not present, whereas empathy (often indistiguishable from sentimentality) implies sympathy for what is foreign. History shows us again and again that two peoples cannot understand each other: they a r e essentially, ineradicably, alien to each other. And this is generally true even if they are of the same race. How many Englishmen, even those who admire things German, have ever understood the German, entered into his spirit, and become one with him? Not even Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who married Wagner's younger daughter, spoke and wrote perfect German, lived and died in Germany, could do that. Listen to how a n English or a Jewish musician plays German music, and the listener will understand that empathy is a trivial factor. A German musician's instinctive feeling for the music of his people constitutes an understanding in which empathy and intellectual comprehension play no role. As for the source, of Dr. Smith's irritation-namely Dr. Andreas Wesserle's letter (Winter, 1981)-it is impossible to understand his annoyance. Dr. Wesserle stresses (and rightly so) the incomparably more destructive nature of Allied bombing. In the context of his letterand outside that context, as well!-his point is perfectly apt. Dr. Smith's observation that Germany lacked the resources to answer in kind is not germane. It was never part of Germany's strategy to commit such atrocities. Had it been, Germany would have manufactured the

Correspondence

necessary bombers before the war. As it was, in fact, Germany's intention to remain at peace, while redressing the viscious wrongs of the Versailles Treaty, her ornaments generally were scanty. Ronald Klett Greendale, Wis.

WHY CREMATE? It is claimed that the Nazis used cremation-a very inefficient method for disposing of millions of corpses-for the purpose of causing the bodies to vanish without a trace, thus destroying evidence of the genocide crime. Most people, not being familiar with the cremation process, assume that cremation reduces a corpse completely to ashes. This is not the case. I have been informed by an undertaker that cremation reduces the soft tissues to ash but not the bones. The bones must then be ground up in a machine built for the purpose. The "ashes" of a cremated corpse consist mostly of ground bone, some pieces being "as long as one-half inch." It would not make sense to cremate millions of corpses and then bury the bones in mass graves. One would simply bury the corpses, as the corpses would take up little more space, especially if emaciated, than the bones alone. Therefore, if the Nazis had murdered and cremated millions of Jews, they must have ground the bones and there would exist today vast deposits of bone in areas where the camps were located. Barbara B. Clark San Diego, Calif. JUDICIAL BAMBOOZLE
I read with some amazement in your publication that "jucicial notice" had been taken that "Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944." I fear that such a "judicial notice" opens up what we common folk call "a can of worms." To begin, what is a Jew? No one seems to really know. A race? A religion? Judeans? Khazars? I believe a court in Isreal declared that a Jew was a person born of a Jewish mother. But would that also apply if a Jewish woman were raped and impregnated by a Japanese or Negro? Was Karl Marx a Jew? It is my recollection that he was a member of the Lutheran Church and wrote various anti-Jewish articles. What about Trotsky? A Communist and Atheist and also a Jew? What about the scxalled "secret Jews" the Marranos. Are they Jews in fact? "Gassed to death?" Perhaps by accident. Or murdered by other Jews. Or murdered by Poles or Russians. Or by SS men in violation of SS regulations. "Gassed to death" can mean anything. And how many? "Jews" could mean only two. "Auschwitz concentration Camp?" Was Auschwitz really a "concentration Camp?" Was it not an industrial complex? Now this is nit-picking but when "judicial notice" is taken, that "judicial notice" must be carefully, even tediously, examined.

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That Auschwitz was in Poland seems pretty safe, but, again, to nitpick, was Auschwitz not actually in the secalled "General Government" which had been set up by the German Occupation authorities? Why rofor upecificnlly to tho "~ummor of 19441" This seems to indic:clte that ~omotl~ing upociol happenod during that summer. Were J O W H only "ga~8od death" during tho uummor of 19447 If so, were they to gassod during the ontiro summer? If only two Jewa were involved then ono day would havo beon enough. And the "judicial notice" gives us no reason to think that more than two were involved. If thousands or millions were involved, why does the "judicial notice" not say so? Suppose we knew nothing about Auschwitz other than the information provided by the "judicial notice." If that were truu, we might well think that the Jews involved were criminals executed by the Polish government. We would have no reason to think that the German government was involved in any way. What conclusions would we draw if told that "Jews were gassed to death at Sacramento, California?" We might well think the reference wae to criminals executed by the State in that era when California used cyanide to remove unwanted members of society. We certainly would not think the German government or the Mexican government or the Chinese government was involved in the affair. I t would not help even if the "judicial notice" charged the German government and specifically the SS with having Jews "gassed to death." We would have to have a copy of the order to do the gassing. And by whom were our two Jews dispatched? SS men in general could not have done the gassing, it would have to be a particular individual or group of individuals. Or maybe it was done by Himmler personally. We do not know because the "judicial notice" does not tell us anything a t all about the circumstances. Well. I think I have beat this dead horse long enough. I did want you tb know that your publication stirred up my thinking and so put down these idle thoughts. Do not take "judicial notice" of them. They a r e too confused and too lacking in concrete data. If you take "judicial notice" of something make sure you are on firm ground. "Judicial notice" that the Earth goes around the Sun seems safe enough. But to take "judicial notice" that water runs down hill might be less sure. I seem to remember t h ~ the famous "Believe or Not" man, Robert Ripley, found a river t so~newhore that run uphill. Best Wishes in your work. We must be free to question any event in history, and ready to change our minds if new information comes along. W.E. Dudley Los Vogas, Nev.

SEEDS OF WAR As regards the Zionist provocation of Hitler & whether I subscribe to that viewpoint-I do believe that the ugly seeds of World War I1 were laid in the anti-Hitler barrage of 1933 & 1934. There were anti-Jewish incidents to be sure but nothing like the stuff put out by irresponsible journalists and people like Samuel Untermyer. Another case of making "political mountains out of racial molehills." You can'see the same process a t work in the current "Timmerman affair." Bezalel Chaim D - ~ , - l , l ~ r - ~ T ~ Y y nTr k A

Cui Bono ? An American Veteran's Views on Non-Jewish Toleration and Propagation of the Extermination Thesis
Dr. CHARLES E. WEBER

(Presented at the 1981 Revisionist Conference) A c c o ~ ~ d i nto Cicero, L. Cassius Lohnginus Ravilla, who w a s g Consul of tlie Roman Republic in 127 B.C., admonished judges involvud in criminnl trials to invostiguto tho quoetion to whoso advantage a criminal a c t might h a v e been committed. His famous question, which h a s h a d a n influence on western juridical practice ever since, consisted of only two words: "Cui hano?" It is my intention in this p a p e r to pose this question in o r d e r to understand the motivations of several non-Jewish groups whose members frequently not only tolerate but actually propagate a patently questionable historical thesis. Both material a n d psychologicul molivations a r e to bo oxuminod here. Jewish, a n d especially Zionist, exploitation a n d continued propagation of the "Holocaust" material have r a t h e r obvious economic rlnd psychological m o t i v ~ t i o n s which linvo beon described by a n u m b e r of authors,l but the strange, if not apparently masochistic, toleration a n d even propagation of the material by non-Jewish groups havo not heen sufficiently summarized a n d discussed. The evidence against t h e claim t h a t some six million Jews w e r e deliberately killed (largely by lethal gas) on a massive scale in labor a n d relocation camps as a result of a general extermination policy on t h e p a r t of Germany a n d its wartime allies, h a s long b e e n available to anyone w h o w a s objective a n d

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interested enough to examine even the simplest of demographic data available in readily accessible reference works. As early a s 1951, for example, Col. John Beaty pointed out the demographic evidence against the claim in his important little book, Tho Iron Curtain Over America, pp. 134 ff. In more recent yours such brillit~nt nnnlysos of tho extermination thesis a s those by Prof. Arthur R. Butz and Dr. Wilhelm Stliglich have merited the attention of those who objectively seek the truth in this area. The most obvious group which we must consider a r e the Germans themselves. Before considering their present sentiments rind espociully those of their governments with regard to tho oxterminntion thesis, we must first undertake a cursory analysis of the sentiments which prevailed in German lands during 1933 and later, along with the conditions which caused them In 1945, Germany and those who had held leading positions in the National Socialist government during 1933 to 1945 were a t the mercy of victorious and very vindictive powers. Indeed, tlioy wero ovcm dopo~idonton tho victors for vital food supplies. In the wuko of n terrible military dofeat with staggering costs in blood, torritory tind trecisure, former members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party also faced considerable hostility from the rest of the German population,2 although a mere ten years before 1945 the National Socialist movement had been enjoying a great popularity a s a result of its notable successes during the first years after its accession to power in early 1 9 3 3 . ~ One measure of this popularity was the Saar plebiscite of 13 - January 1935, in which about 90010 of the Saar population voted to return to Germany and only about 8.8% to continue under the League of Nations. Not only did National Socialism enjoy considerable popularity in Germany itself, but a t least a fair measure of admiration and approval in non-German lands. An indication of this sentiment can be seen in the Olympic games held in Berlin in 1936. In contrast to the massive boycott of the Olympic games held in the USSR in 1980, there was certainly no massive boycott of the games in 1936. Perhaps the most important tolerant reaction to National Socialism abroad was to be found in the attitude of the vast majority of Americans to it. They wanted no formal involvement in a war against Germany in spite of powerful and influential interests which From the present vangtage, there wanted such an inv~lvement.~ is certainly no reason to doubt the results of many private polls which showed that about 5/6ths of the American population

Cui Bono ?

.wanted no formal part of the war raging in Europe and that this sentiment persisted rather constantly right down to 7 December 1941 in spite of the massive unemployment which still existed in the United States, even throughout the years 1940 and 1941, and in spite of the powerful forces which favored formal entry into the war against Germany, a land comparable in area to the State of Texas. During the years 1940 and following, many individuals in the occupied lands voluntarily helped the German cause. Some of them were quite distinguished persons, such a s the famous Norwegian author Knut Hamsun (1859-1952). who had won the Nobel Prize in 1920. The military figures, Marshal Petain and Admiral Horthy, to mention only two examples, also cooperated with National Socialist Germany. Notwithstanding the popularity of National Socialism which existed during the years before the tide started to turn against the German armed forces in 1942-3, we a r e now confronted with German governments which not only tolerate the extermination thesis and "Holocaust" material but actively persecute those who dare to question them5 To understand this seemingly paradoxical phenomenon, we must understand the present position of these governments and their historical background. Both the German Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic, its Communist counterpart in central Germany, a r e states which developed from the military occupation zones that existed during 1945-1949. (The eastern quarter of the area of the Reich as it existed in 1937 was incorporated into Poland and the USSR.) Within strict limitations and directives, Germans were gradually permitted ever greater authority to govern themselves and finally the two republics were founded in 1949. Even if these two states enjoy a nominal sovereignty today, they remain essentially creations of the occupying powers: The United States, Britain and France in the case of western Germany and the USSR in the case of central Germany. Somewhat parallel developments took place on a much smaller scale in Austria, which was not accorded full sovereignty until 1955, and then only with many stipulations by the victors. Austria, for example, had to promise never to join Germany again. Many German politicians of the present generation founded and furthered their careers while disavowing National Socialism or any connections which they might have had with it (e.g., Willy Brandt). Having thus committed themselves, they are hardly in a position to be receptive or even just tolerant to historical revisionism, no matter what its merits or validity.

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All three of the present German republics a r e faced with. delicate problems with regard to the approval of other nations, for economic reasons, if nothing else. Since about 1870 Germany has been incapable of growing sufficient food for its population, which was expanding especially rapidly between about 1870 and 1941. Germany was therefore forced to export or starve, a circumstance which has brought it into conflict with other European nations that must also compete for overseas markets. This problem became even more acute after the large territorial losses of 1918 and 1945. I recall vividly a plea for mercy made to me shortly after the war by a former National Socialist in Internment Camp No. 75 in Kornwestheim, north of Stuttgart. He pointed out that people of his nation had not had enough to eat for 30 years. As a result of the overwhelming propaganda deluge of World War I1 against National Socialist Germany, the present German republics have been forced to disavow all that the Germany of 1933-1945 represented. It has generally been the policy of the three German republics to represent the German government in power during 1933-1945 (or 1938 to 1945 in the case of Austria) as an illegal usurpation and a gross discontinuity in German history. Officially, western Germany in particular has had a tendency to glorify the Weimar Republic and to consider itself the legal successor of the Weimar Republic (whose flag and motto it has readopted), even though there a r e important differences between the Weimar Republic and the Bundesrepublic. The German Democratic Republic, on the other hand, represents itself a s a n innovation, namely the first German government of peasants and workers. Perhaps the chief immediate reason why the Bundesrepublik, has.made a great ostentation of prosecuting former National Socialists is that it has thus sought to counter a collective guilt thesis which would have been disavantageous to the German nation a s a whole. So strong has been the reaction against the defeated National Socialist government that in a number of ways the Bundesrepublik seems to go out of its way to pursue policies which a r e the mirror opposite of the policies prevalent in 1933 and following years even if such policies endanger the economic, social and ethnic fabric of Germany. One notable example is the toleration of the massive assimilation (economic, if not also cultural and biological) into the German population of foreign industrial workers who a r e markedly different culturally from Germans, notably those from Turkey and Yugoslavia. The present very

Cui Bono?

1UY

low birthrate in Germany could very well be a result of destruction of a wholesome and constructive national pride. Both in general and in particular with regard to the extermination thesis, the policies of the Bundesrepublik must be assessed on the basis of a psychological reaction to the crushing military defeat of its predecessor government, the circumstances of the creation of the Bundesrepublik and the economic realities which the Bundesrepublik faces, both internally and externally. Turning now from the attitudes toward the "Holocaust" material which prevail in the three present German republics that evolved in part of the former territories of the Reich, let us now examine the toleration and exploitation of the "Holocaust" material in the case of groups outside Germany. Since the United States became the leading and most effective adversary of Germany during the course of World War 11, let us consider first of all the relationship of non-Jewish groups in the United States to the "Holocaust" material. In 1945 the tremendous damage which had been inflicted on the German population and such outstanding monuments of European civilization as Nuremberg and Dresden were there to be seen by all, including the millions of young American men who served in the American occupation forces. Many American soldiers were inclined to be sympathetic to the German population, particularily the men from the former Confederate states, whose not-all-too-remote ancestors had also known a tough enemy occupation after dsfeat in a war also fought largely over racial issues. On the other hand, I know a fellow veteran of World War I1 who still boasts of his exploits in that tragic conflict. He is a Germanophobe and claims to have been present at tho capture of I : o i t i o t i t wllicli 110 likes 10 d o s c r i h ~ with considerable exaggeration. He still proudly sliows u propuganda book put out by his division just nftor the wnr. Such a man has a n obvious vested psychological interest in continuing his beliefs in the flood of Germanophobic propaganda in which he has joyfully bathed during the past 35 years. As Friedrich Nietzsche observed in his Also sprach Zarathustra with ironic accuracy: "Der gute Krieg ist es, der jede Sache heiligt." (It is the good war which hallows every cause.) The higher officers carrying out the occupation policies on the basis of orders and directives from Washington were concerned about the sympathy toward the German population which was present in many of the lower-ranking officers and enlisted men, who typically had much closer contact with a

broad spectrum of the German population. Allegations of atrocities committed by the Germans were a most welcome aid in inhibiting this sympathy on the part of American military personnel, a s well a s subduing psychologically the German population, which was receiving rationed food supplies hardly above the starvation level. I recall a motion picture widely shown in German civilian theaters (around 1946, I think) concerning conditions in German labor and relocation camps. The Germnn title was Dic Todesmiihlcn (Mills of Death). On n hrociclor scnlo t h ~ ntho immediate problems of the militciry oc:c:upclliori W ~ S1110 8eic:rifico of time, blood and treasure which tho Americnn pooplo lint1 liad to make to dofent an enemy which had been involved in a titanic struggle against communism, which many farsighted Americans had perceived a s a far more dangerous enemy than National Socialist Germany. Before December 1941, bitter political battles had been fought over the question of intervention, and some time after the hostilities were over no less a figure than Senator Taft of Ohio had the wisdom, decency and courage to question the legal basis of the Nuremberg trials. The Democratic Party, which had its men in the presidential office from 1933 to 1953 and thus bore the essential responsibility for the conduct of the war and the postwar relationship with the USSR, welcomed any means of rationalization and justification of its conduct during this period. Democrats further welcomed any means to discredit their former adversaries on the intervention question and to counterbalance the emerging recognition on the part of many Americans that some dismal and unjust mistakes had been made in the conduct of the war, which were now beginning to pose such serious problems a s the blockade of Berlin and the communist domination of eastern Europe. It is still common in certain circles to refer to the emerging recognition of the mistakes which had been committed and the wrath of the broad masses of the American people resultant from the recognition of them a s "McCarthyism." In reality, what we subsume under the term "McCarthyism" was the quite understandable anger a t the Roosevelt and Truman administrations for their naive, if not criminally irresponsible, furthering of communist aims. Many opponents of "McCarthyism" continue to look to the "Holocaust" material as a political weapon and rationalization of the behavior of the Democratic Party. Even today, over three decades after the end of World War 11, it is strange to observe the composition of the supine audiences a t the "Holocaust" seminars sponsored in many cities of the United States by Jewish organizations, often on university campuses. Much of the audience consists of non-Jews who feel the approval of Jews and perhaps, in some

cases, still feel a necessity of rationalizing the conduct of the war by the Democratic Party. As a result of heavy Jewish influence in the American news media, especially in television, typical American political figures would not dare to question the "Holocaust" material, although many of them are doubtless aware of the reasons for doubting its validity. So effective and persistent has been the propagation of the "Holocaust" material that few adult Americans a r e not aware of the claim that six million Jews were murdered in German relocation and labor camps during World War 1 , but it is doubtful that even 1 1% of the American population would be able to explain the term "Operation Keelhaul," even though it refers to one of the most disgraceful and unfortunate episodes in American history. Even if only about 3% of the American population is Jewish, that component has a political influence completely out -of proportion to its numbers. The "Holocaust" material is deeply woven into the very fabric of American political life. Let us now turn briefly to England, which undertook the grave step of declaring war on Germany on 3 September 1939 and thus staked its very sxisto~lceon tho defout of Germany. Thore cnn 110 littlo doubt todny that this stop was hnrdly occasioned by a n idealistic concern for the continued existence of the Polish state, a nationalistic dictatorship hardly milder and less hostile to its large Jewish population than Germany. A fortnight after the German invasion of Danzig and western Poland had begun, the USSR launched its occupation of eastern Poland against some resistance. However, England and its somewhat less eager companion-in-arms, France, hardly made a whimper of protest, let alone a declaration of war, against the second invader of poland6 The English problems with the occupation of Germany during 1945 and the years after, had a vague similarity to those of the United States in some respects, but we must also bear in mind that England had been a long-time competitor of Germany for overseas markets. Now England was in a position which enabled her to play a major role in keeping German goods out of the international trade channels of the world, at least for a few years. Paralysis of German industrial production could be maintained by such monetary policies that England helped to impose a s the continued, forced circulation of the old Reichsmark notes, which was not ended until June, 1948. Many of the important factories in the British Zone were dismantled and sent to Russia, a s grotesque a s that might seem today. England had strong economic motivations for the psychological discrediting of its old commercial and industrial rival, and these were certainly not frustrated by the continuing inundation of the bitter hate

propaganda against a prostrate Germany, including, of course, the "Holocaust" material. England was also most heavily involved in the almost Carthaginian destruction of German cities during the long period after the declaration of the unconditional surrender policy to the end of the war, a period of about 2 % years.7 Although a great deal of publicity has been given to the bomb damage which England suffered during World War 11 (e.g., Coventry), this damage was only a very small fraction of what Germany suffered.8 If the English had any self-recriminations for the destruction of Gorrnun c i t i o ~ n n d tho genuinely holocaustal killing of hundreds of thousands o civiliuns in tho procoss, f what could have been better for assuaging their consciences than the "Holocaust" material? Let us finally consider a group of states which have exploited the "Holocaust" material in a most energetic manner: the USSR and its satrapal governments in eastern Europe. As we shall see, the communist lands have had compelling reasons to continue to propagate the "Holocaust" material. At first, however, we a r e confronted with the question a s to what extent we a r e dealing with a non-Jewish group in this case. There can be little doubt that in its earlier years the government of the USSR was a government largely dominated by Jews. There is oven a considerable body of literature on this question and even Winston Churchill, the shrewd political opportunist par excellence, expressed his observations of the largely Jewish composition of the early Soviet government in 19208 The middle classes of western Europe were well aware of the ethnic reality of communism and the brutality of communism in practice. This circumstance, perhaps more than any other pf a number of factors, caused the hostility to Jews that prevailed in so many lands west of the Soviet Union during the period between the two world wars. Even in their own backyard, the ephemeral government of Bela Kun (1919) made its quite negative impression on the middle classes in western European countries. Be that a s it may, let us now consider motivations which the USSR and its postwar sotrapies have hcld for emphasizing the "Holocaust" and similar material in their post-1945 propaganda. The behavior of the USSR externally during recent decades has struck foor into tho hoarts of decent, successful people throughout the world. Before the German invasioxi of Russia in June, 1941 the USSR had taken by force or threats of force large areas of eastern Europe, a fact which is now not commonly recalled. Going from north to south, we first consider the

Cui Bono ?

113

war which the USSR waged in Finland. The Finns fought back bravely during the war in the winter of 1939-1940 and gained the sympathy of the world, but were finally forced to give in and make painful territorial concessions. The USSR annexed the three Baltic republics, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the middle of 1940, the eastern part of Poland in September 1939 and a n important part of eastern Rumania in 1940. The treatment of the populations in these lands, especially the Baltic states with their German minorities, was undoubtedly an important factor in Hitler's decision to invade Russia, in addition to the frightening Soviet buildup of arms, particularly its tank strength, which was essentially an attack asset.1 In spite of the gross numerical superiority in terms of national population and numbers of tanks which the USSR had at the outset of the war between the Soviet Union and Germany, German forces were able to penetrate so far into Russia (beyond the Baltic states and Poland) that its two major cities, St. ersburg (communist name: Leningrad) and Moscow, were threatened within a few months. To the south, much of the agriculturally important Ukrc~ino was occupiotl. Undout~todly this catastrophe for the communists was due in large measure to the hatred of the brutal regime under which massive tyranny, famines, industrial stagnation and oppression of minorities had occured. It had to become clear to the Soviet leaders what inherent weaknesses their regime had and how close they were to defeat, in spite of the fact that the war was inherently a David-Goliath contest. By early 1943 the tide of battle began to turn a s a result, due to a considerable extent to moral and material support from abroad, notably from the United States. Tlio spring of 1045 Hriw tho finnl dofont of tho numericnlly far inferior German forces and by 1948 the new Soviet empire wuu 111 (:o1111*ol f I I O ~ I I *11t1Ir or 1110 K I I I * ~[ ~ x (~: l ~ ~ d i nScl~nclino ~ ~ o) g avia) which had existed west of the Soviet borders in 1038, including almost exactly half of Germany a s it existed in its 1937 borders. During Juno 194U to Muy 1949 tho whole world was astonished and sobered by the affrontivenuss shown by the new Soviet empire in its blockade of Berlin. By 1949 the world was also terrorized by the knowledge that the masters of this empire now had atomic bombs at their disposal, having been aided by a number of spies in this area, nearly all of whom were of Jewish origin and two of whom were executed for their treason in 1953, after a long judicial process. As a result of a number of factors, but especially a s a result bf the gullibility, ignorance of foreign affairs, and even treason on the part of members of the Roosevelt and Truman admin-

TI 1E JOURNAL OF I-IISTORICAL REVIEW

istrations, the Soviet Union had been lifted from the depths to a position of great power and security. However, in spite of a sophisticated apparatus for the suppression of the populations in the occupied countries and satrapies, massive deportations and the like, a number of revolutionary movements developed against the oppressors, which culminated in the very important Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which had tremendous psychological and political repercussions even in defeat. Skillful and energetic propaganda efforts on the part of the Soviet rulers have undoubtedly been a big factor in the upward climb of the Soviet Union, which started from a nadir of its fortunes in 1943. The "Holocaust" material has proved to be especially valuable to tho Soviet Union for a number of objectives. It has not been without design that memorials relating to tho "Ilolocnu~t" clnims oro to be found in many places throughout the Soviet ompiro and that tho sites of former relocation and labor camps in which largo numbers of Jews were interned during the last years of the war have been preserved and altered in such a way a s to make the "Holocaust" claims seem plnusible, a t least to the superficial viewer. Even postage stamps issued by tlie satrupios ovor a long period keep up the publicity of the "Holocaust." An essential objective of this propaganda effort is the demonstration that in spite of the obvious and continued oppressiveness of the Soviet empire, a German victory would have meant a worse life. The "Holocaust" material thus plays an essential role in the pacification of the many nations and ethnic groups of the Soviet empire, including a number of lands which fought u s sovereign states on the side of Germany during its titanic struggle against Communism during 1941-1945: Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. The material is continually used a s a justification to the outside world for the retention of eastern Europe in the Soviet empire. A further advantage to the Soviet empire from stressing the "Holocaust" material. lies in its appeal to the Jewish minorities in various 'lands, especially in the United States. The "Holocaust" material has proved to he a useful supplement in a number of other Soviet propaganda efforts, including the Nuremberg "trials" and the obliterating by contrast of the awareness of many crimes of the Soviet Union against other nations, such a s the Katyn massacres.11 By way of contrast, the massive sufferings on the part of non-Jews remain little known and virtually unmentioned in the popular and school history books of the United States. We need only think of the starvation of Ukrainian peasants in the early 1930s, the massive deportations of populations from the Baltic

states and the staggering numbers of deaths of Germans during their expulsion from the eastern German areas of 1945-1946. It is estimated that some 2,000,000 Germans died or were murdered during these expulsions.12 Obvious though the usefulness of the "Holocaust" material to Zionists may be, its continuous exploitation by various nonJewish groups in various lands for various reasons is of a continuing importance that has heretofore not been generally realized. As corrosive, divisive and destructive as the "Holocaust" material and extermination thesis are, we must certainly not consider Jews exclusively responsible for their continued propagation.

100000 Bijrger vieler Nationen von Faschisten ermordet

TI1E JOURNAL OF FIISTORICAL REVIEW

In Communist lands even postage stamps a r e used in the continuing propaganda campaign against a government which passed out of existence decades ago. (1) German Democratic Republic, April, 1961, On the Sachsenhausen national monument, the enscription on the lable means: "In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp 100,000 citizens of many nations were murdered by Fascists. In honor of the dead and for the admonishment and commitment of the living the national admonitory and commemorative structure a t Sachsenhausen was erected." (Note: In Communist lands the word Fascist is used in place of national socialist.) (2) German Democratic Republic, August, 1963. Treblinka Memorial. (3) German Democratic Republic, 1980. Majdanek Memorial. (4) Poland, July, 1956. Warsaw Ghetto Monument. (5) Poland, Oct., 1967. Stutthof Monument. (6) Czechoslovakia, May, 1967. Pinkas Synagogue Memorial. Menorah and list of camps: Terezin (Theresienstadt), BelZec, Osvgtim (Auschwitz), Gliwice (Gleiwitz), Buchenwald, Majdanek, Riga, Mauthausen, Ravensbriick. (7)Czechoslovakia, Feb., 1972. Lidice Memorial, dates 1942 and 1972.

Notes

1. The huge payments of "reparations" by the German Federal Republic to the Zionist state in Palestine (which did not even exist before 1948) were made on the basis of the Luxembourg agreement of 10 September 1952. See Encyclopedia Britannica, 1970 edition, Vol. 2, page 88. For a discussion of the psychological motivations, see H. Stein, vol. 1,no. 4.. pp. 309-322 of The Journal ofHistorica1 Review.

Cui Bono ?

The author of this paper lived in Germany during 1945-1948 and was involved in the s ~ c a l l e d "denazification" activities of the United States military forces, of which he was a member. He was thus in a position to hear a variety of views on the war. 3. The reasons for the general popularity of the National Socialist government in Germany and to some extent even beyond the German borders a r e too complex to describe in detail here. Suffice it to say that the main reasons were probably the reduction of the rate of unemployment from that of the final years of the Weimar Republic and the restoration of a measure of national self-respect after the humiliations resulting from the Versailles Treaty. John Kenneth Galbraith, an economist dear to the hearts of "liberals" in many lands, characterizes the results of National Socialist economic policies a s a "signal accomplishment." (Money, Bantam edition of September, 1976, pp. 174-5.) 4. Again, there were factors involved here which a r e far too complex to analyze within the scope of this paper. 5. For documentation of such persecution, see Der moderne Index, published by the Verlag Fiir Volkstum and Zeitgeschichte, Vlotho on the Weser. June 1980 (Historishce Tatsachen Nr. 7). 6. I recall broadcasts by the Deutschlandsender during the early yuors of tho wnr. At the signoff before the pluying of the notional anthem and the Horst-Wessel-Lied this message was rupetitud nightly: "England hat don Krieg erkl'drt. Deutschland siegt, wird ihn beenden." (England declared the war; Germany is winning and will end it.) 7. For an excellent summary of this involvement, see the book 1 review by Charles Lutton, "Death from 0 1Iiigh," in Tho Iournul of Historical Roview, vol. I, no3, pp. 247-254. 8. For the trernondous difforencu in tho tonnuge of bombs droppud. see James J. Martin's, The Sugu of Hog Islund, Colorado Springs, 1977, pnges 53 and 85. (Available from the IklR $4.50) 1 remember trunslati~lga report ill 1947 or 1948 by 131.0fon80r I'urcy Sc:llrur~~rri of Gilttingon on the German civilian denths from bombing, which hu estimated at 800.000 us I rucall. This would seum to be nbout twelvu I ~ I I I U Y1 1 1 I~I U I I I I J U ~ orc:ivi1i1111~ i l l c r ~ li 1 1 I ~ I K I I I I I I Il)y Corrnt~t~ I I I I I I ~ ~ ~ . k I)C 9. Anthony Sutton approaches this matter in a rathur reserved. ulr~~ost upoloyolic: rnurlllur i l l I I ~ H irnl~orl~~nt WUII Strntrt nntf tho Bolshevik Revolution (New Rochelle: Arlington Ilouso, 1974). pp. 1U5 ff. There are also o number of books end booklets from what might be cllllud tho ~llt~irl'yroull~i I'I'OHH wllicll ~ ~ H I : I I H H t l l i ~ rnntltrr ill morel explicit terms, of which the following are only a sample: 7'110 Worlrl COII~JIY)I-IJ~S. Chri~tiilnnook Club, 1968 Louis Murtll~ulko, Frank L. Britton, Behind Communism. no date or place. Quotes! Quotesl I Quotesl I I, Los Angelos, no dato. 10. At the outbreak of hostilities tho Soviet Union hud 20,000 tanks. some five times the number Germany could put in the field in Russia. P, Knightley, The First Casualty (1975). pp. 146 and 153. (available from the IHR, Hb $14.50, Pb $7.00)
2.

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11. The Katyn massacres of captured Polish officers and the "Hole causti' material a r e , of course, essentially different topics, but Roosevelt's highhanded efforts to suppress the knowledge of Soviet guilt in the massacres a r e instructive. (See Louis FitzGibbon, Katyn, The Noontide Press. Torrance. 1979, pp. 183-4.)It seems to me that one of the most striking and readily verifiable disproofs of the extermination thesis is the contrast between the German behavior after their discovery of the mass graves a t Katyn in 1943 and the behavior of the Communists ofter their capture of the Auschwitz terrain of 27 Jrrnuury 1045. Tlio Gormnns not only thought that they had nothing to hitlo, IIU t invitod i r l ternr~ tiorlo1 orgu~iizationa, foroign foronsic experts, fc~roignjourn~ilist~ r i c lo v o ~ ~ r~ so1110 Allictci prisoners of w a r to witnoss the gruesome evidence of the massricro wliicll Iiriti obviously boon carried out by their communist enemies. The German exploitation of the Katyn evidence should have been not only a propaganda victory for Germany, but also a stern admonishment to the United States and other allies of the USSR a s to the nature of their ally. If proofs of the extermination thesis would have been present a t Auschwitz and other camps captured by the Soviets, they could easily have attained a n ovon grerttor p r o p ~ g a n d a victory by doing just what the Germans had done in 1943, ruthor than just tho opposite. Moreover, they had every incentive for striving for such a victory had the evidence actually been present. 12. Journal of Historical Review, vol. 1, no 2, p 101, wliore Nemesis at Potsdam by Alfred M. de Zayas (1977)is reviewed. For a statistical breakdown of the denths and populations involved in the expulsions, tloo prlgo XXV of this book. (nvoilablo from the IHR, $9.00).

This paper, presented by Dr. Weber a t the IHR's 1981 Revisionist Conference, is available on cassette tape from the LHR a t $8.95.

Whatever Happened to the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Dr. MARTIN A. LARSON

(Presented at the 1981 Revisionist Conference)

After listening to so many magnificent talks on Revisionism, I wonder whether my subject has any real relevance. But it does deal with an historical distortion and cover-up of the first magnitude and I hope you will find it interesting and constructive. I was brought up in a very religious family, but a t a n early age I had begun to question some of the teachings that were given to me in my boyhood. And I remember how I questioned the minister of our church when I was reading for confirmation a t the age of fifteen concerning some of the atrocities committed by the Jews after they left Egypt, under the leadership of Moses, and according to-thestory of the Old Testament, invaded Palestine, attacked the inhabitants there, took their property, and drove them from their homes with the help of their God, Jehovah. My interest in religion continued unabated over the years. And thus it was that when I wrote my Ph.D. thesis at the University of Michigan, it dealt with Milton's theology-particularly his Trinitarian concept-and I published a book on the subject in 1927. But then for many years I had no opportunity to study religion or, in fact, anything else. But soon a f t e r the Dead Sea Scrolls w e r e discovered in 1947, I retired from active business and could then devote myself to study. I therefore plunged into research of the Scrolls, and in due course, published a book on the subject called the E s s e n e Heritage. And so, the authors of the Scrolls, the Essenes, their writings and their impact on history has been a subject of consuming interest to me for many years.

THE jOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

The Origin and Development of the Cult

Let us first summarize some of the known facts concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls and their authors, the religious organization known as the Essenes (they were also called The Holy Ones, the Poor Men, the Sons of Light, etc.) and who existed in Judaea and t l i u r ~ o r l r l j y( I o ~ o r tf r o m nhout 1 9 2 B.C. to the d a t e of their extinction and dovtructioii i l l (jc3 or 70 A.ll., whon tho R o m ~ n c i r m i e ~m r ~ r c h a dthrough Palestine a n d finally dostroyod uniquo tis on historicnl phenomeJerusalem. This cult ia probul~ly non; throughout its existence, it w a s opposed to the Jewish authorities: althougli i t accepted the Scriptures which constitute the Old Testament, it revised, rewrote, or completely reinterpreted them. Also, what is ovon more significant than important, they gradually absorbed various elements from other sources, such a s Zoroastrianism and Pythagoroanism. As a result, they prepared an entire corpus of original scripture which was not only a definite d e p a r t u r e from official Judaism, but in basic contradition to, and a repudiation of, this system of doctrine and ritual. At the beginning, the cult was simply a reaction against the Hellenizing of Jewish life under Greek domination, but shortly thereafter, i t split into two well-defined factions, one of which developed into later Essenism and the other into tho Pharasaic movoment which produced the Rabbinical priesthood, who, to this day, constituto tho officinl spokesmen for Judaism. By 143 R.C., ns wo learn from Josephus, three distinct groups had been fully developed in the Jewish population: they were the Essenes, the Pharisees, and the Saducees, of whom the last represented the wealthy, upper-class Jews, who had embraced Epicureanism a s their philosophy. - In 134 B.C., Hyrcanus, the only surviving son of Judas Maccabaeus, became king of a n independent Israeli nation and ruled until the year 104.In the next year, Alexander Jannaeus assumed the throne and ruled until 78, after which his widow, Helene, or Salome Alexandra, served a s Queen Regent until the year 76, when her two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, after taking over, fought each other in a bloody internecine conflict for the possession of power, until the year 64, when Pompey the Roman general invaded Palestine and reduced the Jewish nation into a Roman province under puppet rulers and procurators, who continued until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Original Cultic Scriptures

During the period from 192 to 60 B.C., the Essenes produced a

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great corpus of literature under the inspiration of leaders known from generation to generation a s The Teacher of Righteousness, he was also called the Holy Great One, and was given other titles signifying revelatory powers a s direct conduits of messages from the Supreme God of the Universe, who, by the way was something quite different from Jehovah, the tribal god of the Jews. Extremely interesting is the fact that two very important documents-The Book of Enoch and The Testaments ofthe Twelve Patriarchs-were well known among the early Christians and accepted by them a s sacred literature of their own. Scholars had no suspicion that these, although widely used in later periods, were produced by the Essenes until the scrolls were discovered near the Dead Sea in 1947. Since hundreds of fragments of these documents were found in the caves, it became obvious that they were among the very important scriptures composed and used by the Essenes themselves.

Persecution and Separation

Whtitever olso wo m u y coneidor (1s firmly oetubliehod, i t is certain that under the reign of Hyrcanus, wlio was affiliated with the Pharisees previous to 104 B.C., there was persistent persecution of the Essenes, partly because of doctrinal deviations but of perhaps even more b o c a u ~ e their condemnations of the Jewish authorities, who frequently invaded neighboring territories and forced people there to accept Judaism and circumcision on pain of persecution and even of death. Thus it was that about 104 B.C., a s we l e a r n from Josephus, the Essenes became a n esoteric mystery-cult with its own communes, its own code of laws, discipline, and organization, which included a total withdrawal and separation from all public activity. As a result, it became the depository of total religious commitment, living in expectation of the day, not very far in the future, when an all-powerful divine personage would appear, eend all thoir Jowieh persecutors into everlasting torture in hellish dungeons under the surface of the earth, and establish the kingdom of the saints, (the Sons of Light,) with its capital in Jerusalem. Under Alexander Jannaeus, who ruled from 103-78 B.C., this hostility and persecution intensified. The Essene documents written during this period a r e filled with the fiercest denunciations of the Jewish priests and authorities, who not only raided the communes of the Holy Ones and decimated their membership, but were also guilty of constant acts of aggression against their innocent and unoffending neighbors. I know of no other literature replete with comparable condemnations of acts of violence committed without provocation. The documents in our possession

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which contain this material are The Habakkuk Commentary, Parts IV and V of the Book of Enoch, and various statements found in The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the original portions of which were composed while Hyracanus was king. This situation seems to have continued under Queen-Regent Alexandra a n d her two sons between 78 a n d 64, when the independent Jewish state was suddenly terminated by the interposition of Roman authority. It is interesting to note that Herod the Great, the puppet Roman ruler of Israel from 39 to 4 B.C., was an Idumaean who had converted to Judaism and was therefore know as a half-Jew. At all events, it is certain that the tension between the Essenes and the government was, if anything, more fierce under Jannaeus than it had ever been before. As we have noted, they became a secret brotherhood in 104 in order to avoid total extermination; in spite of this, however, their persecution continued; with their members under solemn vows of secrecy, their organization survived and, in time grew, especially under the comparatively mild regimen which followed the conquest of Judaea by Pompey in 64.

The Execution of the Rabbis

Josephus relates that Jannaeus, who had a t first espoused the Pharisees, later went over to the Sadducees: and when the former were accused of conspiring with the Syrians to subvert the government, Jannaeus had 800 leading rabbis crucified at one time; and, as they hung on their "trees" or crosses, he had his soldiers cut the throats of their wives and children as he himself feasted at a great banquet with his concubines and his favorites. This had been doubted by many until the fact was confirmed by the publication of a Dead Sea Scroll fragment which related precisely the same facts.

The Execution and Deification of the Teacher The climactic event in Essene history occurred h 70 or 69 B.C..
Although all the details of this will probably be known only if more Scrolls are published, certain facts are known. At that time, the Teacher of Righteousness-that is, the Essene leader-went boldly into Jerusalem and there, in the very temple itself, he proclaimed and c.ondemned the lawless corruption a n d aggressions of the priests and authorities who ruled in Israel. He was therefore seized and executed, by what means is not certain, but some scholars believe that he was crucified. Shortly t h e r a f t e r , the persuasion developed among his followers-until it became actual dogma-that he was the Most High God of the Universe Himself who had appeared for a time as

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a man among men; that he died a sacrificial d e a t h for the redemption of sinners; that he had risen from the grave on the third day; that he had returned to his throne in heaven; and that, before the end of the then-existing generation, he would send a representative to the earth. This representative would in due course be invested with unlimited power and would terminate the present dispensaiton, conduct the last judgment, and establish the communal kingdom of the saints on earth, who would then come into possession of all the property of the wicked, who would, thereafter, suffer infinite and eternal agonies in hell.

The Essene Revelations Completed

Except for a few original documents written after 69 B.C., and the final interpolations added to The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs at the same time, the cult seems at this point to have considered its corpus of literature and revelation complete. The members studied their scriptures in the various communes scattered about Palestine. Those destined for a special type of leadership were sent to the headquarters at Qumram near the Dead Sea, where they multiplied their holy writings in a s c r i p torium, where members underwent ritual baptisms daily, and where, dressed in white robes, they partook of sacramental meals in anupper chamber every day.

The Secret Esoteric Order

From Josephus, who was a neophyte in the Order for three years, the world has always known a good deal about the Essenes. When an individual joined, he sold everything he owned and turned the proceeds over to the curator of the Order, who kept this in a separate fund for three years, when it was returned to the applicant if he did not qualify for membership. If he did qualify, his property was intermingled irrevocably with that of the Order, and he was admitted to the commune, but still not permitted to partake of the sacramental bread and wine, nor was he yet taught all its mysteries until the end of five years, when, if he satisfied the leaders as to his truth and reliability, he was finally admitted to full membership. Josephus states that if a member was expelled for some serious infraction of discipline, he simply lay down in the desert and died of starvation, since he could not eat any other kind of food. Between 60 B.C. and 69 A.D., the communes, which increased to 4,000 male members, continued with little alteration, while awaiting the coming of the Redeemer. However, a s the Romans subjugated Galilee on their southward march toward Jerusalem, they came across various Essene communes and, suspecting the

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cultists of being a secret and conspiratorial society planning the overthrow of Roman rule, members were tortured under interrogation to reveal their secret doctrines. However, as Josephus tells us. they died, smiling,rat her than violate thoir sacred oaths to never, no never, reveal their beliefs to anyone, no matter what the provocation might be.

Secreting the Scrolls

Then an extraordinary event occurred. As the Romans a p proached the Dead Sea headquarters at Qumram, the Essenes placed their sacred writings in hundreds of earthen jars, sealed them carefully, and secreted them in various caves located in the rugged terrain. We believe that they expected to return in the not-too-distant future to resume their long-practiced way of life. But, of course, they never did.

Was Jesus an Essene?

The existence of the Essene cult had always been known from tho oxtonsivo roferoncos to, rlnd doscriptions of, them in Josephus, Pliny, a n d Philo Judaeus. Interestingly enough, Thomas De Quincey, a famous English essayist, declared about 1825, that there never was a separate Essene organization; that the so-called Essenes were simply Christians gone underground; that otherwise we would have to accept the blasphemous conclusion that there were two independent, yet almost identical, revelations at the same time and in the same place. There are scholars who believe that Jesus had been a fullfledged member of the Order; that he was persuaded that He was the personage foretold in their scriptures who would be empowered to establish the Kingdom of Righteousness, and that, therefore, he broke his vow of secrecy and preached the doctrines of the Order in the highways and the byways of Galilee. Some scholars are also convinced that not only John the Baptist but also the original core of men who established Christianity had been members of the Order. Some believe in addition that when their communes and headquarters were destroyed by the Romans, many of the Essenes became an intergral and decisive element in the formation of the Christian movement. There was, in particular, one segment known a s the Ebionites, or the Poor Men, who recreated in detail in their own literature, the doctrines, teachings, and discipline of the Essene communities. Actually, the three Synoptic Gospels, and especially Luke, are studded with statements in complete harmony with the cultic teachings, a s is the sscalled Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew. The more we study the Dead Sea Scrolls and the early canonical Christian

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Scriptures, the more striking are the parallels which become evident. We have already noted t h a t two important Essene documents were widely accepted by the early Christian converts a s genuine scriptures of their own. Perhaps these converts had previously been Essenes.

The Great Discovery

In 1947, an event of world-shaking significance occurred. An Arab shepherd-,boy, following a stray goat, entered a n aperture on the side of a 'cliff and stumbled into a cave where the Essenes had secreted a number of jars containing scrolls. However, few of these were intact; most had been broken, and their contents scattered about the floor, much of the material torn into shreds. Obviously, the caves had been invaded, perhaps several times, with damage which cannot easily be assessed. However, after the Arabs had recovered two virtually complete manuscripts of Isaiah, a copy of the Manual of Discipline, The Thanksgiving Pslams, The Habkkuk Commentary, the Damascus Document, and the War scroll, they sold these to a group in New York; and, in a short time, they were made available to the world in translations by Millar Burrows, Dupont-Sommer, Gaza Vermes, and Theodore Gaster.

Many More Scrolls Discovered

Then began an archeological search without parallel in religious history. One expedition after another went to the Dead Sea area in search of more scrolls. One team was headed by Millar Burrows, who s t a t e s in his Dead Sea Scrolls t h a t material sufficient to fill three large volumes was found in a single cave, cave four in which twethirds was original Essene scripture and the remainder consisted of Jewish canonical books. After these were placed in the Jordanian Museum in Jerusalem, an international team of eight scholars were selected to collect, piece together, and prepare for publication this incomparable treasure of source-material; of these, four were Roman Catholics: three had Protestant affiliations; and only one, John Marco Allegro, was without personal religious commitment. Without much delay, Allegro translated and published everything committed to him, including the delicate Copper Scroll, which listed precious metals and jewels worth millions of dollars secreted somewhere in the desert-where they still remain. However, he published also the material which tells the story of how Jannaeus crucified the rabbis; and after he declared in an interview that the Teacher of Righteousness may have been crucified in 70 or 69 B.C., by the Jewish authorities, he was thereafter denied all access to the

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Scrolls and was not even permitted to visit the Jordanian Museum in which they were kept. He complained bitterly that after years of delay not one line of the Scrolls, in addition to his, were translated and published; and this in spite of the fact that no less than 400 separate documents had been piecod together by 1965 and could just as easily have been given to the world, as were the four or five published shortly after the original discovery. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs contained a great many passages which had always be considered of Christian origin because they depict a personage in many respects similar to, or almost identical with, the character and mission attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. However, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this theory became untenable as fragments of the Testaments written nearly a century before the emergence of Christianity w e r e found scattered about the caves which contained the very statements which had always been believed to be Christian interpolations. When I learned about these, I wrote to the curator of the Jordanian Museum offering to fly there if I would be permitted to photograph a piece of parchment from the Testament of Levi. He replied that if I came, I would not even be permitted to look at it, much less take a picture of it.

The Six-Day War of 1967

And so, even though year after year had slipped by without any additional publication of Scroll material, I continued to hope that someday it would become available. But then, a s you know, a catastrophic event occurred in 1967-the Six-Day War, (as it is called) in which the Israelis seized all of Jerusalem, including the Jordanian Museum and its contents.

The Fate of the Scrolls

.Over the years, until his death, I corresponded with Millar Burrows, who had written a sympathetic review of my book, The Essene Heritage, published in 1967. He refused to admit that there was any attempt to delay or prevent the publication of the Scrolls. Once he even declared that the Oxford Press was on the verge of releasing a large volume of this material; but the publishers stated to me in a letter that they had no such project under consideration. Thus, year after year, I kepi prodding Burrows on the subject, and his replies became more and more evasive until they ceased altogether. One question continued to occupy my interest: what had become of the scrolls? Why were none of them published for so many

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127

years? Sometimes I wondered whether they woud survive or ever be made available to the public. However, we should note that even in the custody of the Jordanians, they w e r e held in the strictest secrecy-and why? I could only surmise that extreme pressure had been exerted by both Christian and Jewish sources: *fromthe former, because it would not be beneficial to them should it be established that this faith grew out of a Jewish cult and was, therefore, not an original revelation; nor would the Israelis wish the Scrolls released, since they were filled with fierce denunciations of Jewish religious leaders a n d civil authorities. It is my considered opinion and my sad conclusion that the Dead Sea Scrolls will never be given to the world unless basic changes occur: first, they must be removed from the custody of the Israeli government and, second, we must establish an intellectual climate in the western world in which scholars and ministers can discuss religious subjects without fear of reprisals, in the form of lost prestige, removal from lucrative positions, loss of salaries or other sanctions which can be enforced against anyone who dares to interfere with the emoluments or the powers of those who are most powerful and influential in society. I think it is a s simple a s that. And a t the back of my mind lingers a gnawing f e a r that instead of being translated a n d published, the leather or parchment on which the Scrolls are inscribed, may be physically destroyed or becomeundecipherable before anything is done to release them. And it is highlysignificant that for several y e a r s there has been little or no discussion anywhere concerning the Scrolls. It seems that by ignoring the whole subject, its significance will die in the public consciousness.

The Museum in Jerusalem

From various friends who have recently returned from tours of the Middle East, I have learned a number of significant details. There is now in Jerusalem an onion-topshaped building, designed to resemble the earthen jars in which the Scrolls were placed in 69 A.D.; most of the structure is underground and resembles a tunnel. This building is called the Shrine of the Book, and tourists are told that it houses not only the Dead Sea Scrolls, but also other documents found at the fortress of Massada and still others related to the revolt of Bar Kokhba which occurred in 135 A.D. A 24foot Scroll of Isaiah is on open display. I have been told that documents said to be original Scrolls a r e to be seen under extremely thick glass covers. I have been told also that in case of an emergency such as a n attack, all the cases containing the manuscripts could be lowered into an impregnable underground vault.

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However, so far a s I have been able to learn, nooneis permitted to make an examination of these scrolls, touch them, or photograph them. No one, to whom I have talked, has the faintest idea of what is actually in the museum. And certainly, not one word of the Essene material has been published in the fourteen years that have elapsed since the Six-Day War. Whether the Scrolls are there or in condition to be examined, I certainly do not know, nor have I been able to obtain any information on this score.

The Future of the Scrolls

What, if anything, the future holds in store in this field beyond what is now occurring, remains of course to be seen. I can think of no possible valid reason why the Scrolls have been withheld now for nearly thirty years. If they could not be prepared for publication in that length of time, would a century or two centuries be enough? It seems to me that unless we can rescue them from their present custody a n d also achieve a new a n d different intellectual world climate, there is little hope that anyone now living will ever see any translation of these scrolls. I consider what has happened and is continuing to occur in the matter of the Scrolls the greatest cover-up of important historicel material that has occured in modern history. The enemies are the special interests and a fierce bigotry that can only continue to persist by ignoring one of the most important questions that have ever faced world-scholarship. I do not expect to see any new developments during my lifetime, and it is one of the great disappointments of my career a s a scholar and writer. (This live presentation of Dr. Larson is available on standard cassette tape at $8.95 from the IHR)

EI Salvador: The War to Come

SAMUEL EDWARD KONKIN I11

(Presented at the 1981 Revisionist Conference)

Introduction
News and its interpretation changes daily, if not hourly, but the lead story on the front page of the November 6 New York Times should have brought chills to Revisionists, whatever their historical period preference: "Haig says U.S. Aid to Salvador Junta Must Be Increased" and subheaded: "He Indicates That Officials Are Studying Ways to Combat Arms Flow to Guerrillas." The byline w a s held by long-time Times r e p o r t e r , Hedrick Smith. The content was no less frightening than the headline. Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig (whom Murray Rothbard refers to a s the sane, restrained wing of the Reagan Administration on foreign policy,l) said in a n interview:

. . . that he was not ruling out actions outside El Salvador but related to that country's guerrilla war. And indirectly, Mr. Haig confirmed the substance of a report in The New York Times today disclosing that he had asked the Defense Department to examine measures for a possible blockade of Nicaragua, or actions around Cuba, including naval exercises, a show of air power, a quarantine or even stronger action, all aimed at curbing the arms flow toward El ~alvador.2
Further on, Hendrick reports:

TI1E JOURNAL OF IjISTOKICAL REVIEW

Administration officials h a v e disclosed t h a t beginning in June but accelerating recently, Mr. Haig a n d Robert MacFarlane, the State Department counselor, w e r e pressing the Defense Department to develop contingency options for action against Nicaragua a n d Cuba.

One option raised was a blockade of Nicaragua, which Mr. I-Iuig liua cnllod n trunsfor point f o r arms to El Salvador. Among the requested options of possible action toward Cuba, officials said, were a large naval oxorciso, (1 show of air power, a quarantine on the shipment of arms to Cuba. a general blockade a s part of a n act of war and un invasion by American and possible Latin American forces. Contingoncey plans, us A.J.P. Tnylor has shown us concerning ~ e r m a nare,not necessarily acts of war or even threatening in ~ ~ themselves. However, theso have followed a long period of the American State's saber-rattling on El Salvador and many take them seriously. For examplo, the Los Angeles Times editorialized, with a most appropriate heading, "El Salvador: The Spreading Crisis;" t h a t :
U.S. Socrotnry of Sttlto Alexnnder M. Haig Jr. h a s been rattling r. hie u n l ~ o r ethie wook o v o r El S n l v ~ ~ d oAltlrot~gIlo c c n ~ i o ~ i n l ~ ) o u i u r i ~ ~routill0 i l l intornnlionnl diplomncy, I-inig'e e t ~ t e m e n t s i~ g clro worrieomo wllon uoori i l l 1110 co~itoxt f ollior rocorlt oven18 that o c:ollltl t~ffocltho S~~appirig ono'a mind right back to the oclriy d r l y ~of 1110 V i o l N I I I I I: o l l r I i ( : l , 1110 Sl111o I)opnrtnlerlt 11ow ( considers the civil w a r in El Salvador to bo a stalomute.5

The countries involved in the wider region certainly take it seriously. Guatemala held recent talks with El Salvador's junta to coordinate military action, says the editorial, adding further:
This kind of activity, a n d the manacing words from Haig, have not gone unnoticed in C u b a a n d N i c a r a g u a . Fidel C a s t r o h a s denied reports that Cuban troops mRy be fighting dongside the S~lvndoran insurgents. I-Ie nlso ordered his islend's defense forces to s t a n d a t full alert, i11 anticipation of some overt move against his regime by the United States. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas also claim that they are p r e p a r e d to repulse a n expected invasion, in this c a s e by supporters of late dictator Anastasia Somoza. If it comes through Honduran territory, they w a r n that the resulting w a r will s p r e a d throughout Central ~moricn.~

The Times concludes wimpishly:

So it is to be hoped t h a t a n escalation of the Salvadoran conflict i s n o t n e c e s s a r y . If m o r e t r o o p s m u s t b e s e n t i n , i t w o u l d b e preferable t h a t they come not only from military regimes like

EI Salvador
Guatemala and Argentina. Democracies like Venezuela and Colombia also have a stake in the outcome of El Salvador's civil war, and they should be urged to help the Duarte government itself. Even as I penned these words, The Los Angeles Times reported, "Reagan, Venezuela to 'Stand Together'." Lest we dismiss that a s diplomatic rhetoric, the article states, "The two leaders agreed that the U.S. attempt to achieve peace in El Salvador through elections is the correct course, the official said. Reagan 'indicated emphatically that we reject both the right and left extremists and that our path is the democratic middle path' in El Salvador, the official said."8 One could interpret Reagan's actions a s fulfilling the Cold War Liberals' conditions for support of American intervention. Or perhaps the Liberal media were rationalizing and putting their best face on. The real questions a r e "does this mean war?", "can it be stopped?" and "what can we do about it?" There is another important question to be answered first. Can Revisionist History predict war?

Future Revisionism
To a large extent, the question of war prediction is of recent vintage. In the past, States were run by explicit ruling classes who weighed the gains and losses of going to war with other States and did so when it was in their interest or unavoidable. With the rise of democracy, majorities had to be swayed. Statism can be used to redistribute wealth from few to many and can easily win votes for that. War, the health of the State a s Randolph Bourne had it, never benefits the many. A majority can be convinced to support a war only if they're convinced they have no choice. That is, the majority must feel threatened and that they would lose more if they eschewed warfare. Whatever the situation for small countries surrounded by big, rapacious States, the United States and Great Britain have never really been threatened with invasion and conquest. Germany and Russia, both of whom were devastatingly invaded twice this century, have far more grounds for fearing attack. Yet the British and American States have been involved in nearly all major conflicts of this century. One historical school has it that the British-American Imperialist Axis has been fighting one long war since 1914 with cold and hot periods. The British were frankly imperialist a t the turn of the century. By 1945 the constant warfare had devastated their economy and culture and their empire was gone. Yet they had "won" all their wars.

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Small wonder that American Republicans warned against the United States becoming an empire from William Graham Surnner's The Conquest of the United States by Spain to Garet Garrett's The Rise of Empire. The world was sick of war in 1919. Better educated masses with longer memory retention and majoritarian power, at least in extremis, became impervious to Statist blandishments for war. 'rhoso countries which could not vote out war overthrew their States and toppled their ruli~igclausos. Bolslioviks took power with peace a s the first plank in their platform; fascists seized power to withdraw their nations from the web of entanglements of the international bankers and their sponsored imperialism. In both c a s e s , the hopes of the masses w e r e deluded a n d then destroyed, but the impetus was there. In this atmosphere, the Revisionist school of history flourished. Revising the court historians' establishment view of events, they sought original documents and reasons b e h i ~ dreasons given. They sought to explain war, how it happened and why, and later they investigated everything from the causes of the Depression to those of the American Constitution; again, always challenging the State's collegiate brothel of academic prostitutes. Why ? Two reasons present themselves. First, the Revisionist Historians pursued Truth wherever it may lie, whatever the cost, whoever was hurt or discredited. Still, such a n academic exercise would be quite sterile if it did not affect future choice of action. And, indeed, the Revisionists perceived the same conditions arising in 1938 that arose in 1912. They predicted war and they strove to prevent it. To see the future would fix it indelibly. What will happen could not be changed. To predict the future is to extrapolate present - conditions- causes- along the most probable lines of passageeffects. Such predictability, "if this goes on, that will happen" is the basis of science. Thus, History qua academic discipline has sought scientific validity by exhibiting sufficient understanding to predict the historical consequences of human actions. And Revisionists seek the same scientific basis. Harry Elmer Barnes and Charles Beard saw the coming of World War 11, opposed it, and were ready for immediate post-war Revisionist accounts. Though Revisionism was set back badly by the weak post-war reaction to the New Deal war misrepresentation so that Korea soon followed, Korea provided the renewal of disillusionment with statism that revived a new Revisionist wave ready for Viet Nam. The American Imperialists had picked up the fallen banner of Imperium from the collapsing British one in World War 11. The

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U.S. and Britain traded places a s senior and junior partner. By 1945 the American Empire effectively ruled the entire planet in coalition or alliance. But the Churchill-Truman axis, consciously or unconsciously, realized the necessity of the threat of a foreign enemy to maintain the power of the State, the action of its citizen-victims. "Iron Curtain" speeches w e r e made, the former s t a u n c h ally in Moscow was menaced, Stalin reacted with appropriate paranoia, and the world grouped around two imperial metropoles. Only after the Fair Deal imperialists provoked the Cold War did Eastern Europe get converted into buffer s t a t e s for the Russian Bolsheviks. China became the major Soviet ally in 1949 and they both moved to take Korea, an appendage to Soviet Asia and China's Manchuria. Half was already Soviet-bloc. The United States could not win in Korea, and if it could, it dare not. If Douglas MacArthur had nuked Peiking and Moscow, the U.S. would have to invent a n o t h e r enemy. The failure of the American statists to fight for unconditional victory-a la Third Reich-left a frustrated populace and fertile grounds for ReviY ionism. Revisionists warned of Viet Nam, but the sheer length of the drawn-out struggle allowed a strong Revisionist movement to grow during the war itself, a first for Revisionists. The legacy of Viet Nam is that the Revisionists a r e stronger and more accepted than anytime since 1919. And now we, the Revisionists of 1982,are called upon to prove our value to our supporters, the consumers of our products. If w e ' r e so s m a r t a n d our theories a r e right-what's going to happen next?

Imperialism On The Wax

There a r e certain premises needed to fulfill this demand. Each .one requires a book on its own, or a t least a paper as long as this one. Fortunately, they a r e not new and can be found nlready put forward and defended in the works of Revisionist giants, such a s Barnes, James j. Martin, A.J.P. 'raylor, Gobriel Kolko, William Appluman Williams, Murray Rothbnrcl, G. Willirlm Domhoff, Leonard Liggio and R.A. Childs. The first premise is that Washington and New York a r e the centers-is one center, really-of a political-economic empire, based on the American State, but controlling many of the other States in the world to different degrees and in different manners. This empire has a ruling elite who run the empire for their own benefit, that of their corporate holdings, and that of their friends, allies and relatives-that is, of this class. This is our second premise.

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Our third premise is that the world is largely divided between this Empire-I call it American, though it has nothing to do with an Iowa farmer, a California fruit trucker or a New Orleans shopkeeper-and u smaller, weaker Empire centered in Moscow. There a r e few neutrals-Switzerland and Finland a r e about it, maybe Costa Rica-though there is a lot of shifting back and forth on the borders. One side-switcher could also be considered a tertiary empire itself, and if China was that strong-which it is not-the great predictive Revisionist George Orwell would have 1984 right on the button. (He was close anyway.) A fourth premise is that these Empires fight "brush-fire wars" in the marginal, borderline-countries for several reasons: retain control or grlin control; protect oxisting investments or open new ones; make diplomatic gambits to affect general configuration of power in neighboring States for strategic purposes; and ultimately, to win popular support a t home for a large war machine. A fifth premise is that the natives of these countries on the Imperial borders have little preference for which Imperial Legion will rule them and would rather be left alone by both sides. Finally, a premise should be added that "Left" and "Right," Socialism, Communism, Fascism. Conservatism, Democracy, Populism and so on, have little to do with the alliances of internal political groups with external imperialist groups. Conservatives like Charles De Gaulle were a thorn in the American Imperium; China's Communists urge the American Empire to even-greater anti-Sovietism. Everyone who opposes American hegemony is linked with Communism; everyone who opposes the Soviet hegemony is linked with the American State Capitalism. With this seemingly long but actually highly abbreviated background, we may commence a Revisionist analysis of our present time, and, hopefully, the immediate future. -. On the whole, Soviet Imperialism is a recent phenomenon and considerably overstated in hawkish American circles. Antony Sutton has made a fairly moderate case that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was almost completely financed and armed by western plutocrats-a position once held only by the "fever swamps" of the far right. Libertarian economics indicates that the closer a State comes to pure State Communism, the closer its + economy will be to chaos. Here I may refer to my upcoming bo.ok, Couqter-Economics, Ch. 3, on the large Counter-Economy which actually maintains the Soviet society. Though the USSR spends considerbly more on sophisticated a r m a m e n t t h a n anyone but the American State, how well the technology would work in a land where right and left shoes often don't match or simply can't be found in the official economy, is open to serious question.

EI Salvador
Moreover, the history of direct Soviet intervention is a string of sordid disasters. Finland fought the USSR to a standstill in 1939 and most Russian conquests afterward were the result of first German a n d then Anglo-American a s s a u l t s on the Western frontiers of the concerned states. The Soviet conquest of its eastern satellites was the conquest of a vacuum, the Russians being the only ones in the a r e a heavily r e a r m e d by the U.S. lend-lease. The Soviets never intervened directly in China, Korea or Viet Nam. Their moves into Hungary and Czechoslovakia were simply restoring control in already occupied land, and today they a r e fighting a losing battle to hold their historic puppet i n ~ f g h a n i s f a n a n d a r e hesitant to a t t a c k heretical Poland a n d its t u r n to syndicalism. The USSR has only two real pieces on the international chessboard to play: a paper nuclear force which has some deterrence to nuclear usage by the American Empire and the ability and willingness to supply all levels of military equipment-though limited in economic capacity to do so-to forces opposing the U.S. Empire. To many countries around the globe, the Soviets and Americans a r e interchangeable and one buys or refuses goods from either- like choosing between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola. Even in indirect imperialism the USSR has been hopelessly outclassed by the American imperialists. For all the Bircher talk of the globe turning Red, in reality, the Russian Empire h a s contracted in terms of client states since the 1960s. Ethiopia and Mozambique were minor gains, Angola is still contested, and Egypt and Somalia were minor losses. Viet Nam was a fairly good gain but more than offset by the loss of China. Laos and Cambodia a r e contested While the majority of governments profess some form of socialism, they are pro-American social democrats. The Socialist International, which supports Nicaragua and one wing of the Salvadoran rebels, for example, is simply lined up with one faction of the American Imperial Ruling Class against the other.g There are currently three areas of hot conflict for the American Imperialists, and it is in these areas that the war will most likely break out-just a s the Balkans w e r e "hot" in 1912, Central Europe "hot" in 1938 and Korea and Viet Nam were festering sores with escalating battles in 1950 and 1961. Let me first eliminate some unlikely possibilities. The American statists will not intervene in Poland or a n y w h e r e in Central Europe; that area is granted to the Soviet sphere of control. The same is true of Afghanistan, though they would draw the line a t Iran and Pakistan. But the USSR has not moved into those unstable situations, largely because it's bogged down in Afghanistan.

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It is also unlikely t h a t war will break out in Korea again, because China h a s switched sides a n d controls Kim I1 Sung. Southern Africa is headed for further negotiated settlements along the Rhodesian precedent, though whether SWAP0 or Turnhalle will come out on top is open, but it probably matters as little a s Rhodesia. Remember, Mugabe is tied io China and hence ultimately serves the American Empire. The rest of Africa may see net U.S. gains; the American imperialists are on the side of the national liberators in Angola, Eritrea and Ogaden for a change. North Africa is another matter. South America looks condemned to military juntas with occasional fascist dictatorships (such as Peronism), except for the democratic north of Colombia and Venezuela. Guyana, for example, could not go further left without Brazil crushing it and Caribbean is currently probably excusing an annexation. ~ h ' e volatile, but really little problem for the U.S Marines and fleet to control The three hot spots for a future war, induced by both current instability and elimination of alternatives, are South-East Asia, the Middle East, and Central America. South-East Asia is on the back burner now, but Cambodia is still hotly contested and China is itching to hit Viet Nam again. Thailand is threatened by Viet Nam but has the ASEAN pact behind it. The interlocking treaties here make 1914 look simple and there will be another war here soon. My humble revisionist opinion is that it won't be there sooner than the other hot spots, and even if it boils over, China can deal with it directly. unless the American Imperialists are bogged down elsewhere and the Russian Imperialists have settled Afghanistan and Poland. In that event, all bets are off and the U.S. will have to intervene to keep the Russians off the Chinese. The next hotter spot is the Middle East. Iran is unstable, but Afghanistan has the USSR bogged down. Israel is probably not going to directly drag the U.S. into a w a r right away. The Trilateralist higher circles. of America's power elite have clearly indicated their preference for Saudi Arabia as their top client state, and Israel has to swallow it. However, Israel could widen a lot more likely possibility of war, if not start its own. The media attack on Muammar Qaddafi of Libya is stronger than anything since Idi Amin, yet Idi Amin was attacked for his internal policies. Qaddafi is blamed for everything from the IRA to Basque separatists to Maltese obstreperousness to airline hijackers. He supposedly has designs on the Sudan-which is no great prize-and Chad-which is a dead loss. The recent U.S attack on Libyan airplanes over Libyan territory is reminiscent of the Reuben James incident of 1941 except that the

..

El Sol vador

U.S. did not sacrifice their planes, but Qaddafi's. Qaddafi is called a madman by the American Establishment press: that, of course, is a prelude to an attack. If a State is run by a madman, it cannot be trusted and the few little restraints of inter-state morality can be cast aside. War becomes justified. Remember, the Kaiser was mad, Hitler was mad, Kim was mad, but Ho Chi Minh wasn't and look what it cost the U.S. in support. Actually, Qaddafi's Green Socialism is a mixed enterprisecommunal economy supported by oil royalties. His stated intention is to abolish the Libyan government in his lifetime, and though he will sell out or die first, he's certainly the most libertaria n statist rhetorically around, more than Ronald Reagan. But perhaps Reagan is only slightly less mad. What the U.S. Imperialists dislike is that Qaddafi spends his State's money backing all sorts of wild cards in the world scene, such as the RAF, Brigate Rosse, IRA, ETA, and Japanese Red Army. The Soviets h a t e them equally, though they will sell military supplies to Libya rather than have the Yanks get the trade, or the French. The Soviet Imperialists also hope for a windfall gain which would fall in their lap if the U.S. attacked Libya and drove Qaddafi into accepting direct client status from Russia in desperation. Naturally, all political groups which are controlled neither by Washington and Moscow are terrorists. That is, they terrify the Politburo and the Trilateral Commission. The Trilaterals were about to strike recently when Qaddafi pulled a master coup. By pulling out of Chad immediately upon the request of the very premier who invited him in, he stymied the invasion threat to his own country. Libya has cooled off, but may heat up again. Even then, Egypt can handle the invasion as a stand-in for U.S. troops, as long as the rest of Arabia stays out. In that situation, Israel could spark off a widened war and plunge the entire Eastern Mediterranean into the real holocaust. (Events after the Conference change little in the analysis. Reagan's paranoid assassination fantasy was issued to counter Libya's withdrawal move and generally fell flat as no evidence was offered.) Since the speaker immediately following is representing the Palestine Arab Delegation, I'll let him deal with the Palestinian factor and spend much more time on the situation there. The hottest spot is Central America. Things may change but the Washington-New York Trilateral Empire wants a w a r for domestic as well as external reasons, and it looks like El Salvador is the center of that war-to-be.

TI-1E JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL REVIEW

El Salvador: The Lies Begin

Before we forget, this is a paper of Revisionist History. What we're going to revise, hopefully as fast as the Court Historians can spit it out, is the torrent of lies and distortions about the civil war in El Salvador. One way to predict a war is to see when the Imperial States are most distorting a situation and misrepresenting the sides. According to the American statists, El Salvador is run by a junta of Christian Democrats and various moderate military people opposing the reactionary landowners, fascist police and military, and Communist and deluded left-socialists. The Left and Right are killing each other and Jose Napoleon Duarte, President of the Junta, is trying to keep down the terrorism and hold honest elections to settle the matter. Alas, the Nicaraguans are sending Cuban arms and money to the Salvadoran guerrillas which they undoubtedly got from Moscow. The massacres taking place are due to Duarte's difficulty in taking control, but with increased American assistance, order will be restored and his land reform can be consummated and eliminate the history of inequities. None of the above is true. Let us begin with the most crucial issue for justifying American intervention in El Salvador, the prior intervention of Sandinista Nicaragua and the Soviet proxy, Cuba.
When the State Department released its report on El Salvador on February 23, it also released 100 copies of a 1%-inch thick packet of documents to support the Reagan Administration's decision to increase military aid to the Salvadoran government. The meat of the documents' original raw intelligence consists of 47 pages of handwritten jottings, memoranda and minutes of meetings, culled from confiscated guerrilla files.1

Supposedly those documents were to show that socialist and communist countries were supporting the opposition to the junta, and with material, not just the usual rhetoric of solidarity.
But these very same documents-in addition to other intelligence reports available to the Reagan Administration that were not included in the White Paper-provide conclusions that fall far short of the Administration's protrayal of El Salvador as an arena of U.S.-Soviet confrontation. The White Paper charges that 800 tons of arms were promised, and 200 tons were delivered, to the insurgents by the time of the [January) offensive. The captured documents, however, indicate that far lesser quantities were promised or in shipment, and only about 10 tons ever actually crossed the border. Battlefield evidence gathered since J a n u a r y , including the statements of a captured Nicaraguan solider-turned-informer,

reveals that the guerrillas were forced to depend on relatively antiquated rifles a n d other weapons purchased on the international black market. In contrast to the Reagan administration's interpretation that the Soviet Union masterminded the arms traffic, the documents reveal that the guerrillas' Communist Party representative encountered a cool reception in Moscow, and was deeply concerned that Soviet "indecisiveness" might jeopardize any promise of arms made by other socialist countries!l So where did the State department come up with the 800 and

200 tons figures?

The highest figure mentioned anywhere in the documents is in a hand-written letter, dated Nov. 1, from a certain 'Vladimir,' who was identified by the State Department as the guerrilla's logistics coordinator in Nicaragua. He wrote that 150 tons of arms had arrived in Cuba, and that "This week" there would be a total of 300 to 400 tons destined for the guerrillas-but t h a t plans to smuggle "109 tons" into El Salvador in November were "almost impossible," Another document, the minutes of a guerrilla General Staff meeting in late September, reported only four of 130 tons of arms in storage had been smuggled into El ~alvador.12

The rest of this quoted source is rich in instant revisionism, but let me just hit a couple of high points.
Neither official battlefield reports nor journalists on the scene have reported large quantities of weapons captured from guerrillas. Other sources of intelligence t h a t tended to contradict the picture of huge arms shipments were available to Reagan analysts, but were not included in the packet of documents.

And, finally,
The key document in Reagan's case that the Soviet Union is the mastermind behind the insurgency, is a report of Salvadoran Communist Party chief Shafik Handal's tour of Viet Nam, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany and the Soviet Union last June a n d July. It is the only piece of evidence that actually mentions the Soviet Union, with the exception of a passing reference in another document to a "Sov." being present at a meeting in Mexico City with socialist diplomats. According to the White Paper, Handal left Moscow "with a s s u r a n c e s t h a t the Soviets agreed in principle to transport Vietnamese arms." The supporting document, however, reports that Handal "exposed his unhappiness with the denial of a meeting at the proper level and the non-resolution of the request for help." A few weeks later, according to the document, the Soviets granted his request to give military training to 30 (presumably Salvadoran) youths studying in Moscow, but ignored his request to ship the Vietnamese arms. The document concluded, "The campaniero (Handal) expressed his concern that the Soviets' indecisiveness

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could affect not only the help they might give but also (prejudice) the willingness to cooperate of the other parties of the European Socialist camp. . ." There, in mid-sentence, the document provided by the State Department ends.13

What little foreign support the Salvadoran opposition gets is a few dollars they spend in the black market. This justifies the U.S. sending the junta "$35 million in military aid this y e a r and studying requests for over $200 million in economic assistance"?14 In fact, the only major foreign intervention in El Salvador is the American State's, that of the Trilateral Imperialists. The countries in the area saw it that way on March 11:

. . .the key governments in Latin America-Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina-have responded to United States charges t h a t the Soviet bloc is supplying weapons to the Salvadoran guerrillas with warnings against deeper United States military involvement in El Salvador. And with rare unanimity they have called for a negotiated solution to the simmering civil war. "I don't see why it is any more legitimate for the United States to arm the junta than for the guerrillas to get weapons from whatever they can," a Mexican official noted! . . . Mexico's President, Jose Lopez Portillo, noted last month: "The crisis that has its temporary epicenter in the Salvadoran conflict has become a spiral that threatens to involve all the states in the area. For this reason, it is necessary to avoid the internationalization of the crisis through a combined policy that has the objective of rigorously preserving the principles of self-determination and non-intervention." Mexico and Venezuela, in particular, seem worried that further militarization of the Salvadoran conflict might polarize the entire isthmus, heightening the domestic crises in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua and prompting regional governments to meddle openly in each others' affairs:l5
So we see there is no Red intervention requiring an American response to balance the scales, or whatever, and the attitude of all the other States in the area is isolationist or non-interventionist, if you prefer. Most of these states are pro-American and some are right-wing dictatorships. The only imperialism in the area is American. What about the manace of an internal Red takeover? Antiinterventionists may support a policy of self-determination in other countries, but if a few million dollars and a few advisors could tip the balance a n d save El Salvador from becoming another Cuba-or even Nicaragua-why bother being worked up to oppose it? Space and time limitations prevent me from fully diagnosing the internal situation of El Salvador. Let me recommend "El Salvador: The Myth of Progressive Reform" by Roy A. Childs in the ~ u h 1981 issue of Libertarian Review. The land reform fiasco e

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of Duarte is spelled out in pages of gory detail. Let me give you one irresistible tidbit.
Within days of the original land decree 153, the military swept through El Salvador, invaded farms, and told the peasants that land reform was an accomplished fact. They were to regard the land as theirs, elect their own leadership and, for the first time in their lives, farm land which was their own property. The peasants, who had heretofore been forbidden to organize, were now ordered to organize. But they did manage to elect leaders, and the Army then came back a n d shot those elected. Eyewitness reports indicate that several times soldiers poured back onto the farms within days after the elections, took away the leaders, a n d machine-gunned them. More than two hundred peasant leaders are reported to have been killed that way.16

This is the moderate, benevolent, Centrist government which is to save the Salvadorans from the horrible fate of communism and deserve2 the blood and treasure of the American people? Way back in 1972, a ticket of Duarte for president and Guillermo Ungo, leader of the Social Democrats, won an election, against candidates of two major power blocs, the military and the landed oligarchy-the infamous 1 4 families. The military's candidate, Colonel Arturo Molina, promptly overthrew the government. In 1977, Molin was ousted by the oligarch's man, General Humberto Romero. On 18 October, 1979, the U.S. backed a coup by reformist military officers-one of three coups being planned-and ousted Romero. The junta brought in the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats in a joint civilian-military junta. The Social Democrats quit and today Ungo, Duarte's former running mate, heads the Democratic Revolutionary Front.
By mid-February, following a denunciation by the extreme rightistDIAbuisson, armed men broke into the home of the Christian Democratic Solicitor-General of the second junta and machinegunned him to death. The entire left wing of the Christian Deme crats withdrew in protest. Remaining in place a s the last fig leaf of the "center" was the right Christian Democrat, Jose Napoleon ~uarte.!~

The oligarchs and military oppose Duarte and freely murder opponents in massacres, including the assassination of Archbishop Romero, the Catholic leader of El Salvador. The left, the Faribundo Marti Liberation Front, oppose the government in armed combat and counter-terror. The moderate left and center, in the DRF, oppose Duarte. No one is left to prop up Duarteexcept the American interventionists. Sound like Viet Nam after Diem's death? You bet. After two years of direct U.S. intervention, we hear the Secretary of State demand massive additional aid, proxy troops, and, maybe, just

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maybe, direct U.S. military intervention, against not only El Salvador guerrillas, but widening the w a r to engulf Central America. I rest my case for The Coming War a s being in El Salvador. You may recall that Ronald Reagan welched on his promise to abolish draft registration in this country. To a Revisionist audience I hardly need say more, except to look to your aware conscience and take appropriate action.

The War Keeps Coming: Update

Updates, or follow-ups, a r e undoubtedly rare in historical publications. And authors taking a flyer at prophecy and prediction a r e usually loath to re-examine their claims for verification later. This rovisionist author welcomes the opportunity offered by The Journal of Historical Review's editor to observe, six months after my announcement of it last November a t the 1981 IHR Revisionist Conference, to see how "The War To Come" is coming along. Actually, my thesis was formulated over a year ago a t a small libertarian meeting: the United States government, or a t least powerful elements in the American States, treads a path that leads to War-at least of the nature and involvement (of the citizenry) of the Viet Nam War. The basis for my prediction was the science, or at least protescience, of Revisionist History. In a nutshell, if revisionism tells us what led to a war (what it's most often used for and for which he have the most data), then, scientifically speaking, it should tell us what leads to war. A science, once tho rulos tlro discovered, must be predictive to be conclusive. Nearlv six months later, in early November of 1981, the article was written and presented to the Third Annual Revisionist History Conference sponsored by the Institute for Historical Review. The additional six months more than doubled my references (many of which were footnoted in the article) and doubled my confidence in the predictions. Since then another six months have passed and the predictions. Since then another six April of 1982, we stand on the brink of a fuil-scale Viet-Nam War right where I pointed. True, various leftists and rightists and other libertarians have viewed the situatiorl in Central Amorica with alarm and cries of potential conflict. Many of them have seen'wars everywhere, th'ough, such a s in Angola and Zimbabwe and various Middle Eastern sites, none of which came off. If one predicts wars everywhere, one will eventually be correct. Today, even many establishment newspapers and other media see a war horizon.

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but they also see various signs of backing away or some sort of "victory" before any get going in earnest. What all the above have in common is wish-fulfillment: both the positive one of seeing the American-centered Empire enmeshed and humiliated again, and the negative one of warning the U.S. off before it gets enmeshed and humiliated. None of the above a r e scientific. Nor is Revisionist History-the collection of knowledge, facts and interpretations of factsconsulted save selectively and for partisan purpose. Most importantly, except for the Marxists perhaps, no one else is really offering a scientific claim for the prediction of events among States and within States. And those Marxists who try to proceed scientifically simply end up a s one school of revisionism, which is not to denigrate the contributions of such a s C. Wright Mills, Gabriel Kolko, and William Appleman Williams to revisionism. In "El Salvador: The War To Come" a combination of premises from compilation of past revisionist work with modern data, mostly in the form of fairly accossible press clippings, led to the following conclusions. First, the nature of States, a t least in recent history, and their reactions to internal economic crises, leads the revisionist to see a War seen a s solution to these internal problems. Second, the class nature of the States-for whom the State acts to benefit-leads us to certain conclusions a s to where the War will happen and even when to a n extent. Third, the actions of States so far in relation to other States (diplomacy and military maneuvers) follow a predictable trend and after a certain point approach inevitabilitjl of conflict. These premises were spelled out in specific for the context of 1981 and the actual world was observed. By a rapid process of elimination, the most likely scenarios were selected. Third most likely was Cambodia, and, indeed, since that prediction Viut N u m heated up thoir uttuck on tho Khmer Rouge to end that threat. Hanoi not only failed to finish off the Indochina struggle but pushed the Chinese-backed Reds closer than ever to a coalition with the US.-backed Khmer Serei and neutralist Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The theatre is still on the back-burner relative to the Middle East and Central America, but continues to heat up. When Libya was first predicted a s the site of the second most likely theatre for War with the American State, we had only got as far a s the American shooting down of Libyan planes over Libyan-claimed waters. A revisionist scenario akin to the provoking of the Japanese to commit Pearl Harbor was seen. By the time the original article was submitted to The Journal for Historical Review for publication, Preside Ronald Reagan had imagined Qaddafi-unleashed assassins sta ing the U.S. to slay him.

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Imagined? On 10 March 1982, neutralist, non-interventionist (or Isolationist, a s we die-hards like to call it) Chancellor Bruno Kreisky of Austria welcomed Muarnrnar Qaddafi to Vienna and replied to the questions of his parliamentary opposition and the Austrian press, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, (11 March, page 9):
Kreisky responded that recent U.S.charges that (Qaddafi) sent "hit squads" to the United States were groundless propaganda and that there was no reason to keep the Libyan leader from accepting an invitation extended by Austria long ago. "There is absolutely no evidence for charges that Qaddafi is the secalled father of terrorism," Kreisky said.

Within a day, in fact reported in that very same day's edition of the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. responded to this revelation by announcing discovery of a new plot by Libya, to blow up a club in Sudan where Americans, especially women and children, hung out, and banning Libyan oil. U.S. material to Libya, save food or medicine, was banned without a special licence. And President Reagan upped the lie denied by Kreisky, claiming that Qaddafi's perfidies "includes the training of 5,000 terrorists a year who are then sent on missions 'from Ireland to the Philippines."' From the Reuben James (Libyan aircraft) sinking to the insulting of ambassadors (calling Qaddafi a madman), lying about Japanese alliances and military objectives (same for Libya), freezing of assets and blocking of trade (banning of Libyan oil and exports. to Libya), we await only some sort of Pearl Harbor to complete the revisionist scenario to War in the Middle East. So far, Qaddafi seems less willing to play kamikaze. Even so, Libya and the rest of the Middle East seems more like a-diversion, or a "spare war in the pocket" for Reagan and the Administration should the prime target not take off in Central America. They seem to have little reason to fear. The $35 million in military aid for 1981 has already jumped over a hundred million and "non-military" aid is several times that. The U.S. advisors who were sent last year have since been reported to be carrying arms and even using them on guerrillas of the Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMNL). One of the contentions of the original paper presented was that the U.S. would engulf the whole of Central America in a war which began with an attempt to surpress the Salvadoran rebels. Sure enough, Guatemala and Honduras were provoked into having elections, and Guatemala promptly went through two coups while the war against their guerrillas continued. Meanwhile, Nicaragua armed itself, though nowhere near as much as

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claimed by the U.S. nor with anywhere n e a r the support from Cuba a n d the USSR claimed (see T h e Lies Begin section of the last paper). For example, in a response t h a t they h a d lengthened airstrips for Soviet-built MiG fighters, Sandinista spokesman (then visiting the U.S.), Jaime Wheelock, said there a r e no Soviet MiGs in Nicaragua a n d t h a t "we don't expect to have any." (Same edition of tha Los Angeles Times cited.) Furthermore, Wheelock repeated charges made previously by the Sandinista government that the United States, in conjunction with the rightist regimes of Argentina and Chile, is undertaking a covert operation to achieve the economic, political and military destabilization of Nicaragua. .Asked Wednesday about reports of such a covert operation, Haig said it would be "inappropriate for me to comment.. ."

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One would not have to bend Central America around too much to put El Salvador in South Viet Nam's place, Nicaragua in North Viet Nam's, perhaps Guatemala for Laos a n d Honduras for Cambodia. The most recent event a t the time of the writing of this update is the Salvadoran election. For a n ostensibly democratic country a s the United States, a n election is paramount to proving that the Trilateralist Empire is really backing the good guys. In Viet Nam, a n election without the National Liberation Front simply led to coups a n d further internal chaos. How about the El Salvador election of 28 M a r c h 1982? Of course, it's too early to tell too much. the New York Times of Tuesday, 30 M a r c h claimed the U.S. w a s jubilant a n d the FMNL demoralized because "900,000of the estimated 1.3 million eligible voters h a d turned out, a figure greatly exceeded expectations.. . ." Actually, only the previous week 800,000 w e r e predicted a n d the newspapers w e r e careful to point out then that there w e r e three million Salvadorans of voting age. T h a t is, less t h a n a third of El Salvador chose to engage in ballots. But that's not the worst problem. Only 40% voted for President Jose Napoleon Duarte's Christian Democrats, with 60% of the seats-of the constituent assembly going to five rightist parties. 28% went to Roberto d'Aubuisson of the National Republican Alliance or ARENA, which h a d never r u n before this election. ARENA is a s close to a fascist party as c a n exist today without Benito Mussolini leading it. As the New York Times put it: The Christian Democrats had hoped to appeal to voters with their economic changes-the redistribution of land and the nationalization of banks and the export of basic commodities. However, Mr, d'Aubuisaon ran an unexpectedly strong race on

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calls to wipe out the guerrillas in three months and to reverse the land redistribution. He pledged to rid the country of "Communists," a group in which he included the Christian Democrats.

In short, the U.S. is about to lose control of their chosen government to a nationalist, if not anti-American, rightist coalition, one which shall certainly have no support among American liberals. Remember all the problems Lyndon Johnson had with Nguyen Cao KY Of course, the Trilateral Imperialists will attempt to buy off some of the smaller parties or, should that fail, force in Duarte or other Christian Democrats anyway. Remember that the coup which brought Duarte in was against precisely the same landedoligarchy-backed type leader a s d'Aubuisson is, and that National Conciliation Party is now angrily backing ARENA in revenge. I concluded "El Salvador: The War To Come" with "No one is left to prop up Duarte-except the American interventionists" and "Sounds like Viet Nam after Diem's death? You bet." You bet still. I also noted that Reagan welched on his promise to abolish draft registration. He still has. The economy is worse and the U.S. is deeper than ever in El Salvadoran politics and military operations. Six months from now, should predictive revisionism hold scientifically, I cannot imagine any alternative to a n update save to describe the Ongoing War.

Footnotes
The Smart Set, October 1981, page 4. The New York Times, November 6, 1981, page one, as titled in text. Ibid., page 4. L.A. Times, Part 11, page 6, November 13,1981. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Los Angeles Times, November 18,1981,Part I, page 6. See, for example, the Yankee and Cowboy War by Carl Oglesby for a crude picture of internal U,S. power elite Divisions. "White Paper or Blank Paper?" by John Dinges, Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, March 17,1981, Part 11, page 7. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. "The Salvador Strategy" by Alan Riding, New York Times, Wednesday, March 11,1981,page 2. Ibid. Source as quoted in text, pages 32-33. "El Salvador, Reagan's War" by Alexander Cockburn and James Ridgeway, The Village Voice, March 410,1981, page 10.

Is the Diary of Anne Frank Genuine?

Dr. ROBERT FAURISSON

1 . Is the Diary of A n n e F r a n k genuine? F o r two y e o r s t h a t question was included in the official syllabus of my seminar on Text a n d Document Criticism. (This s e m i n a r is r e s e r v e d for students in their fourth year, already equipped with a degree.) 2. The Diary of Anne Frank is a fraud. That w a s the conclusion of our studies and research. That is the title of the book I will publish. 3. In order to study the question posed a n d to find a n answer to it, I have carried out the following investigations: C h a p t e r one: I n t e r n a l criticism: t h e v e r y t e x t of t h e Diary (Dutch text) c o n t a i n s a n inexplicable n u m b e r of unlikely o r inconceivable facts. (Paragraphs 4-12.) Chapter two: A study of the premises in Amsterdam: on the one hand, the physical impossibilities m d , on the other hand, the explanations made up by Arl~itt Frurlk's fulllor wvoroly cornpromise him. (Paragraphs 13-1 7 ) Chapter three: Inturviow o f tho principrrl wit rloss: Mr. Otto Frank; a s it turned out, that interview ovorwhelmed Anne Frank's father. (Prlrngrnphs 18-47.) C h a p t e r f o u r : Bibliographical exuminution: somu curioua silences and rovolations. (Parngrnphs 48-55.) Chapter five: A return to Amsterdam for a new investigation: the hearing of the witnesses turns out to be unfuvoroble to Mr. Frank; the probable truth. (Paragraphs 56-63.) Chapter six: The "betrayer" and the person who arrested the Franks: why has Mr. Frank wished to assure them such anonymity? (Paragraphs 64-71 .) Chapter seven: Comparison between the Dutch text and the German text: attempting to make too much of it, Mr. Frank has

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given himself away: he has signed a literary fraud. (Paragraphs 72-103.)

Chapter One
4. Internal criticism: the very text of the Diary (Dutch text) contnins nn inexplicable number of unlikely or inconceivable facts. 5. Let us take the example of the noises. Those in hiding, we are told, must not make the least sound. This is so much so that, if they cough, they quickly take codeine. The "enemies" could hear them. The walls a r e that "thin" (25March1943). Those4'enemies" are very numerous: Lewin, who "knows the whole building well" (1 October 1942), the men from the store, the customers, the deliverymen, the agent, the cleaning woman, the night watchman Slagter, the plumbers, the "health service," the accountant, the police who increase their searches, the neighbors both near and far, the owner, etc. It is therefore unlikely and inconceivable that Mrs. Van Daan had the habit of using the vacuum cleaner each day at 12:30p.m. (5 August 1943). The vacuum cleaners of that era were, moreover, particularly noisy. I ask: "Iiow is that conceivable?" My question is not purely formal. It is not rhetorical. Its purpose is not to show astonishment. My questionisa question. It is necessary to respond to it. That question could be followed with forty other questions concerning noises. It is necessary to explain, for example, the use of a n alarm clock (4 August 1943). It is necessary to explain the noisy carpentry work: the removal of a wooden step, the transformation of a door into a swinging c u p board (21 August 1942), the making of a wooden candlestick (7 December 1942). Peter splits wood in the attic in front of the open window (23 February 1944). It involved building with the wood from the attic "a few little cupboards and other odds and ends (11 July 1942). It even involved constructing in the attic ."a little compartment" for working (13 July 1943). There is a nearly constant noise from the radio, from the slammed doors, from the "resounding peal" (6 December 1943), the arguments, the shouts, the yelling, a "noise that was enough to awaken the dead.'' (9 November 1942), "A great din and disturbance followed. . .I was doubled up with laughter" (10 May 1944). The episode reported on 2 September 1942 is irreconcilable with the necessity of being silent and cautious. There we see those in hiding a t dinner. They chatter and laugh. Suddenly, a piercing whistle is heard. And they hear the voice of Peter who shouts through the stove pipe that he will certainly not come down. Mr. Van Daan gets up, his napkin falls and, his face flushed, he shouts: "I've had enough of this." He Roes up to the attic and there, resistance and the

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stamping offeet. The episode reported on 10 December 1942 is of the same kind. There we see Mrs. Van Daan being looked after by the dentist Dussel. The latter touches a bad tooth with his probe. Mrs. Van Daan then lets out "incoherent cries of pain" She tries to pull the little probe away. The dentist looks a t the scene, his hands on his hips. The onlookers all "roared with laughter." Anne, instead of showing the least distress in the face of these cries or this mad laughter, declares: "It was rotten of us, because I for one am quite sure that I should have screamed even louder." 6. The remarks that I am making here in regard to noises I could repeat in r e g a r d to all of the realities of physical a n d mental life. The Diary even presents the peculiarity that not oBe aspect of the life that is lived there avoids being either unlikely, incoherent, or absurd. At the time of their arrival in their hiding place, the Franks install some curtains to hide their presence. But, to install curtains at windows which did not have them up until then, is that not the best means of drawing attention to one's arrival? Is that not particularly the case if those curtains a r e made of pieces of "all different shapes, quality and pattern" (11 July 1942)?In order not to betray their presence, the Franks burn their refuse. But in doing this they call attention to their presence by the smoke that escapes from the roof of a dwelling that is supposed to be uninhabited! They make a fire for &hefirst time on 30 October 1942, although they arrived in that place on 6 July. One asks oneself what they could have done with their refuse for the 116 days of the summer. I recall, on the other hand, that the deliveries of food a r e enormous. In normal conditions, the persons in hiding and their guests each day consume eight breakfasts, eight to twelve lunches and eight dinners. In nine passages of the book they allude to bad or mediocre or insufficient food. Otherwise the food is abundant and "delicious." Mr. Van Daan "takes a lot of everything" and Dussel takes "enormous helpings" of food (9 August 1943). On the spot they make wet a n d d r y sausages, strawberry jam and preserves in jars. Brandy or alcohol, cognac, wines and cigarettes do not seem to be lacking either. Coffee is so common that one does not understand why the author, enumerating (23 July 1943) what each would wish to do on the day when they would be able to leave that hiding place, says that Mrs. Frank's fondest wish would be to have a cup of coffee. On the other hand, on 3 February 1944-during the terrible winter of '44-here is the inventory of the supplies available for those in hiding alone, to the exclusion of any cohabiting friend or "enemy": 60 pounds of corn, nearly 60 pounds of beans and 10 pounds of peas, 50 cans of vegetables, 10 cans of fish, 40 cans of milk, 10 kilos of powdered milk, 3 bottles of salad oil, 4 preserving jars of butter, 4 jars of meat, 2 bottles of s t r a w b e r r i e s , 2 bottles of

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raspberries, 20 bottles of tomatoes, 10 pounds of rolled oats, and 8 pounds of rice. There enter, at other moments, some sacks of vegetables each weighing 25 kilos, or again a sack of 19 pounds of green peas (8 July 1944). The deliveries a r e made by a "nice green grocer," and always "during the lunch hour" (11 April 1944). This is hard to believe. In a city described elsewhere as starving, how could a green grocer leave his store, in broad daylight, with such loads to go to deliver them to a house located in o busy neighborhood? Ilow could this green grocer, in his own neighborhood (he was "at the corner"), ovoid meeting his normal customers for whom, i l l tho t timo of scnrcity, h e ought normally to be a person to be sought out and begged for favors? There are many other mysteries in regard to other merchandise and the manner in which it reaches the hiding place. For holidays, end for the birthdays of the persons in hiding, the gifts a r e plentiful: carnations, peonies, narcissuses, hyacinths, flower pots, cakes, books, sweets, cigarette lighters, jewels, shaving necessities, roulette games, etc. I would draw attention to a real feat achieved by Elli. She finds the means of offering some grapes on 23 July 1.943. I repeat: some grapes, in Amsterdam, on 23 July. They even tell us the price: 5 florins per kilo.
7. The invention of the "swinging cupboard" is a n absurdity. In fact, the part of the house which is supposed to have protected the persons in hiding existed well before their arrival. Therefore, to instnll n cupboard is to point out, if not someone's presence, a t least a change in tliat purt of tho property. That trnnsformntion of the premises-accompanied by the noise of the carpentry work-could not have escaped the notice of the "enemies" and, in p a r t i c u l a r , of the cleaning woman. And this pretended "subterfuge," intended to mislead the police in case of a search, is indeed likely, to the contrary, to put them on their guard. (" . . . a lot of houses a r e being searched for hidden bicycles," says -Anne on 21 August 1942, a n d it is for t h a t reason t h a t the entrance door of the hiding place had been thus hidden.) The police, not finding any entrance door to the building which serves as a hiding place would have been surprised by this oddity and would have quickly discovered that someone had wanted to fool them, since they would find themselves before a residential building without an entrance!
8. Improbabilities, incoherencies, absurdities abound likewise in regard to tho following points: the windows (open and closed), the electricity (on a n d off), the coal (appropriated from the common pile without the "enemies" realizing it), the openings and closings of the curtains or the camouflage, the use of the water a n d of the toilet, the means of doing the cooking, the

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movements of the cats, the moving from the front-house to the annex (and vice-versa), the behavior of the night watchman, etc. The long letter of 11 April 1944 is particularly absurd. It reports a case of burglary. Let it be said in passing that the police a r e there portrayed to us a s stopping in front of the "swinging cupboard," in the middle of the night, under the electric light, in search of the burglars who committed the housebreaking. They r a t t l e the "swinging cupboard". These police, accompanied by the night watchman, do not notice anything and do not seek to enter the annex! As Anne says: "God truly protected us. . . " 9. On 27 February 1943, they tell us that the new owner has fortunately not insisted on visiting the annex. Koophuis told him that he did not have the key with him, and that the new owner, although accompanied by a n architect, did not examine his new acquisition either on that day or on any other day. 10. When one has a whole year to choose a hiding place (see 5 July 1942), does one choose his office? Does one bring his family there? And a colleague? And the colleague's family? Do you choose a place full of "enemies" w h e r e the police a n d the Germans would come automatically to search for you if they do not find you a t your home? Those Germans, it is true, a r e not very inquisitive. On 5 July 1942 (a Sunday) father Frank (unless it is Margot?!) received a "summons" from the SS (see the letter of 8 July 1942). T h a t "summons" would not have any follow-up. Margot, sought by the SS, makes her way to the hiding place by bicycle, and on 6 July, when, according to the first of two letters dated 20 June, the Jews had had their bicycles confiscated for some time.
11. In order to dispute the authenticity of the Diary, one could call upon arguments of a psychological, literary or historical nature. I will refrain from that here. I will simply remark that the physical absurdities a r e so serious and numerous that they must have an effect on the psychological, literary and historical levels.
12. One ought not to attribute to the imagination of the author or to the richness of her personality some things that are, in reality, inconceivable. The inconceivable is "that of which the mind cannot form any likeness since the terms which designate it involve an impossibility or a contradiction": for example, a squared circle. The one who says that he has seen one squared circle, ten squared circles, one hundred squared circles does not give evidence either of a fertile imagination or of a rich personality. For, in fact, what he says means exactly nothing. He proves his poverty of imagination. That is all. The absurdities of the

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Diary are those of a poor imagination which develops outside of a lived experience. They a r e worthy of a poor novel or of a poor lie. Every personality, however poor it may be, contains what it is proper to call psychological, mental or moral contradictions. I will refrain from demonstrating here that Anne's personality contains nothing like that. Her personality is invented and is as hard to believe a s the experience that the Diary is supposed to relate. From a historical point of view, I would not be surprised if a study of the Dutch newspapers, the English radio and Dutch radio from June 1942 to August 1944 would prove fraud on the part of the real author of the diary. On 9 October 1942, Anne speaks a l r e a d y of J e w s "being gassed" (Dutch text: "vergassing") !

Chapter Two
13. Study of the'premises in Amsterdam: on tho one hand, the physical impossibilities and, on the other hand, the explanations made up by Anne Frank's father severly compromise him.
1 4 . Whoever h a s just r e a d the Diary c a n normally only be shocked on seeing the "Anne Frank House" for the first time. He discovers a "glass house" which is visible and observable from all sides and accessible on its four sides. He discovers also that the plan of the house-as it is reproduced in the book through the good offices of Otto Frank-constitutes a distortion of reality. Otto Frank had taken care not to draw the ground floor and had taken care not to tell us that the small courtyard separating the front house from the annex only 1 2 feet 2 inches(3.7 meters) wide. He had especially token care not to point out to us that this same small courtyard is common to the "Anne Frank House" (263 Prinsengracht) and to the house located to the right when you look a t the facade (265 Prinsengracht). Thanks to a whole series of windows and window-doors, the people of 263 and those of 265 lived a n d moved about under the eyes a n d under the noses (cooking odors!) of their respective neighbors. The two houses a r e really only one. Besides, the museum today connects the two houses. Furthermore, the annex had its own entrance thanks to a door leading, from the rear, to a garden. This garden is common to 263 Prinsengracht and to the people opposite, living at 190 Keizersgracht. (When one is in the museum one very distinctly sees those people a t 190 and many other addresses on Keizersgracht.) From this side (the garden side) and from the other side (the canal side) I counted two hundred windows of old houses from which people had a view of the "Anne Frank House."

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Even the residents of 261 Prinsengracht could have access to 263 by the roofs. It is foolish to let yourself believe in the least possibility of a really secret life in those premises. I say that while taking into account, of course, the changes made to the premises since the w a r . While pointing out the view on the garden, I asked ten successive visitors how Anne Frank could have lived there hidden with her family for twenty-five months. After a moment of s u r p r i s e (for the visitors to the museum generally live in a s o r t of s t a t e of hypnosis), e a c h of the ten successive visitors realized, in a few seconds, that it was totally impossible. The reactions were varied; with some, dismay; with others, an outburst of laughter ("My God!"). One visitor, no doubt offended, said to me: "Don't you think that it is better to leave the people to their dreams?" No one supported the thesis of the Diary in spite of some r a t h e r pitiful explanations furnished by the prospectus or by the inscriptions in the museum.
15. The explanations a r e the following: (1) The "enemies" finding themselves in one of the rooms of the front house believed that the windows which look out on the small courtyard look directly on the garden; they were unaware therefore even of the existence of an annex; and if they were unaware of that, it is because the windows were hidden by black paper, to assure the conservation of t h e spices stored there; ( 2 ) a s r e g a r d s the Germans, they had never thought of the existence of a n annex, "especially a s this type of building was quite unknown to them"; (3) The smoke from the stove "did not draw their attention since a t t h a t time the p a r t ( w h e r e they w e r e located) served a s a laboratory for the small factory, where a stove likewise must have burned every day." The first two of these three explanations come from a 36 page booklet, without title and without date, printed by Koersen, Amsterdam. The last comes from the four page prospectus that is available at the entrance to the museum. The content of these two publications has received the endorsement of Mr. Otto Frank. But in all three cases these explanations have not the least value. The annex was visible and obvious from a hundred aspects from the ground floor (forbidden to visitors), from the garden, from the connecting corridors on four levels, from the two windows of the office on the courtyard, from the neighboring houses. Ceztain of the "enemies" even had to visit there to go to the toilet since there was nothing for that in the front house. The ground floor of the rear house even admitted some customers of the business. As to the "small factory" which is supposed to have existed "in that period," in the very heart of that residential and commercial neighborhood, it is supposed to have remained for a t least two years without emitting smoke, and then, suddenly, on 30 October 1942 it is supposed to have begun

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again to emit the smoke. And what smoke! Day a n d night! In winter a s in summer, in sweltering heat or not. In, the view of everyone (and, in particular, of "enemies" like Lewin who had formerly had his chemical laboratory there), the "small factory" would have started up again! But why did Mr. Frank strain his wits to find that explanation, since, in other respects, the annex is already described a s a sort of ghost-house?
16. In conclusion on this point, I would say that, if I am not mistaken in denying any value in these "explanations," we have the right to assert: (1)Some facts that are very important to Mr. Otto Frank remain without explanation; (2) Mr. Otto Frank is capable of making up stories, even stupid and mediocre stories, exactly like the ones I have pointed out ifi my critical reading of the Diary. I ask that my reader remember this conclusion, He will see below what answer Mr. Frank personally made to me, in the presence of his wife.

17. For the photographic documentation concerning the "Anne Frank House," see Appendix No. 1,

Chapter Three
18. Interview of the principal witness, Mr. Otto Frank. This interview turned out to be overwhelming for Anne Frank's father. 19. I had made it known to Mr. Otto Frank that with my students I was preparing a study of the Diary. I had made it clear that my specialty was the criticism of texts and documents and that I needed a n extended interview. Mr. Frank granted me that interview with eagerness, and it was thus that I was received at his residence in Birsfelden, a suburb of Basel, first on 24 March 1977; from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, then from 3 0 0 pm to 6:00 pm and, finally, the next day, from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm, Actually, on the next day the meeting place had been arranged to be in a bank in Basel. Mr. Frank was intent upon taking out of a safe deposit box, in my presence, what he called the manuscripts of his daughter. Our interview was therefore carried out on that day in part at the bank, in part on the road back toward Birsfelden and, in part, once more, at Mr. Frank's residence. All the interviews that took place a t his residence w e r e in the presence of his wife (his second wife, since the first died after being deported, from typhus it seems, as did Margot and Anne). After the first minute of our interview, I declared point blank to Mr. and Mrs Frank that I had some doubts about the authenticity of the Diary. Mr. Frank did

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not show any surprise. He declared himself to be ready to furnish me all of the information I would want. I was struck, during those two days, by the extreme amiability of Mr. Frank. In spite of his age-88 years-he never used the excuse of his weariness in order to shorten our interview. In the Diary, he is described as a man full of charm [see 2 March 1944). He inspires confidence. He knows how to anticipate your unexpressed desires. He adapts himself remarkably to situations. He willingly adopts anargument based on emotion. He s p e a k s very much of tolerance a n d of understanding. I only once saw him lose his temper and show himself to be uncompromising and violent; that was in regard to the Zionist cause, which must seem sacred to him. It was in-that manner that he declared to me that he no longer even sets foot on the soil of France since, in his opinion, France is no longer interested in anything except Arab oil and doesn't care about Israel. On only three points did Mr. Frank fail in his promise to answer my questions. It is interesting to know that those three points were the following: (1) the address of Elli, in the Netherlands; ( 2 ) the means of rediscovering the t r a i l of the store employee called V.M. in the book (I know that he is probably named Van Maaren); (3) the means of rediscovering the Austrian Karl Silberbauer who had arrested @e persons in hiding on.4 August 1944.
20. In regard to Elli, Mr. Frank declared to me that she was very ill and that, since she was "not very intelligent," she could not be of any help to me. As to the other two witnesses, they had had enough trouble of the kind without my going to pestor them with some questions that would remind them of a n unhappy past. To compensate for that, Mr. Frank recommended that I get in touch with Kraler (by his real name, Kugler), settled in Canada, unci with Miop and hor huabnncl, till living in Am~tardnm.

21. In regard to the Diary itself, Mr. Frank declared to me that the basis of it was authentic. The events related were truo. I t was d Anne, ~ n Anne alone who had written the manuscripts of that Diary. Like every literary a u t h o r , Arlnu porliupe li~id O N ~ O H tendencios either to oxaggeration or to imaginative changes, but all within ordinary and acceptable limits, without letting the truth or the facts suffer from it. Anne's manuscripts form an important whole. What Mr. Frank had presented to the publishers was not the text of those manuscripts, the purely original text, but a text that he in person had tape recorded: a "tapuscript." He had been obliged to transform the various manuscripts in this way into a single "tapuscript" for various reasons. First, the manuscripts presented some repetitions. Then, they contained some indiscretions. Then, there were passages without any interest. Finally,

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there were . some omissions! Mr. Frank, noticing my surprise, gave me the following example (a no doubt harmless example, but a r e there not more serious ones that he hid from me?): Anne very much liked h e r uncles but in h e r Diary s h e h a d neglected to mention them among the persons that she cherished; therefore, Mr. Frank repaired that "omission" by mentioning those uncles in the "tapuscript." Mr. Frank s a i d t h a t he h a d changed some dates! He had likewise changed the names of the characters. It was Anne herself, it seems, who had no doubt thought of changing tho tlamos. Sho had orlvisoged tho possibility of publication. Mr. Frank had discovered, on a piece of paper, the list of the real 11u111os will1 llioir oyuivulor~lf t i l ~ oI ~ L I I ~ ~ O Y . is suppoa0~1 Anno to have thought of calling the Franks by the name of Robin. Mr. Frank had cut out of the manuscripts certain indications of the prices of things. More important, finding himself, a t least for certain periods, in possession of two differest versions of the text, it had been necessary for him to "combine" (the word is his) two texts into one single text. Summarizing all those transformations, Mr. Frank finally declared to me: "That was a difficult task. I did that task according to my conscience."
22. The mnnuscripts that Mr. Frank prevented to me a s being

. .

'

those of his daughter form an impressive whole. I did not have the time to look at them closely. I trusted in the description of them that was given to me and I will summarize them in the following way: A) the first date mentioned is that of 12 June 1942; the last is that of 1 August 1944 (three days before their arrest) B) the period from 12 June 1942 to 5 December of the same year (but that date does not correspond to any printed letter); we have at our disposal a small note book with a linen cover, with a r e d , white a n d brown plaid design (the "Scotch notebook") C) the period from 6 December 1942 to 21 December 1943; we do not possess any special notebook (but see below, the loose leaf sheets). This notebook is supposed to have been 10st; D) the period from 2 December 1942 to 17 April 1944, then for the period from that same date of 1 7 April (!) to the last letter (1 August 1944); two black-bound notebooks, covered with brown paper. 23. To those three notebooks and to the missing notebook is added a collection of 338 loose leaf sheets for the period 20 June 1942 to 29 March 1944. Mr. Frank said that thosesheetsconstitute a resumption and a reshaping, by Anne herself, of letters which

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a r e contained, in a n original form, in the above-mentioned notebooks: the "Scotch notebook," the missing notebook, and the first of the two black notebooks. 24. Up to this point the total of what Anne is supposed to have written during her twenty-five months of hiding is therefore in five volumes. To that total it is appropriate to add the collection of the Stories, These Stories a r e supposed to have been made up by Anne. The text is presented a s a perfect copy. The copy can only involve, to begin with, a work of editing from a rough draft: Anne therefore must have done a lot a scribbling! 25. I have no competence in the matter of handwriting analysis and therefore I cannot express an opinion on that matter. I can only give here my impressions. My impressions were that the "Scotch notebook" contained some photos, pictures anddrawings a s well as a variety of very juvenile writing styles, the confusion and fantasy of which appeared authentic. It would be necessary to look closely at the handwriting of the texts which were used by Mr. Frank in o r d e r to form the basis of t h e Diary. The other notebooks and the whole of the 338 loose leaf sheets a r e in what I would call an adult handwriting. A s regards the manuscript of the Stories, it very much surprised me. One would say that it was the work of an experienced accountant and not the work of a 14 year old child. The table of contents is presented a s a list of the Stories with the date of composition, the title and the pagenumber for each piece! 26. Mr. Frank had a high opinion of the conclusions of the two expert reports called for, about 1960, by the prosecutor in Lubeck in order to examine the case of atteacher (Lothar Stielau) who, in 1959, had expressed some doubts about the authenticity of the Diary (Case 2Js 19/59, VU 10/59). Mr. Frank had registered a complaint against t h ~teacher. The handwriting report had been t entrusted to Mrs. Minna Becker. Mrs. Annemarie Hubner had been charged with attesting whether the texts printed in Dutch and German were faithful to the texts of the manuscripts. The two expert reports, submitted a s evidence in 1961, turned out to be favorable to Mr. Frank.
27. But, on the other hand, what Mr. Frank did not reveal to me-and what I had to learn after my visit, and from a German source-is that the prosecutor in Lubeck had decided to get a third expert report. Why a third expert report? And on what point, given that, according to all appearances, the whole field possible for investigation had been explored by the handwriting expert

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a n d by Mrs. Hubner? The a n s w e r to these questions is the following: the prosecutor thought that an expert report of the kind done by Mrs. Hubner risked declaring that Lothar Stielau was right about the facts. In view of the first analyses, it was going to be impossible to declare that the Diary was "dokumentarish echt" ("documentarily genuine") (!). Perhaps they could have it declared "literarish ech t" ("literarily genuine") (!) The novelist Friedrich Sieburg was going to be charged with answering that odd question. 28. Of those three expert reports, only that of Mrs. Hubner would have really been of interest to me. On 20 January 1978, a letter from Mrs. Hubner let me hope that I would obtain a copy of her expert report. A short time afterward, since Mrs. Hubner did not respond to my letters, I had a German friend telephone her. She made it known to him that "the question was very delicate, given that a trial on the question of the Diary was presently under way in Frankfurt." She added that she had gotten in touch with Mr. Frank. According to the few elements that I possess of the content of that expert's report, it is supposed to have noted a large number of facts that were interesting from the point of view of the comparison of the texts (manuscripts, "tapuscript", Dutch text, German text). Mrs, Hubner is supposed to have mentioned there some very numerous "omissions" (Auslassungen), "additions" (ZUS-atze), and "interpolations" (Interpolationen). She is supposed to have spoken of the text "adapted" for the necessities of publication (uberarbeitet). Furthermore, she is supposed to have gone so f a r a s to name some persons who supposedly gave their "collaboration" (Zusammenarbeit) to Mr. Frank in his editing of the "tapuscript." Those persons a r e supposed to have collaborated in the drawing up of the German text, in place of contenting herself with the role of translator.

29. In spite of those facts that she herself pointed out, Mrs.

Hubner is supposed to have concluded on the authenticity of the Diary (Dutch printed text a n d German printed text). She is therefore supposed to have expressed the following opinion: "Those facts are not important." Now that opinion can only be her personal view. There is the whole question: Who assures us that quite another judgement could not be brought forth on the facts pointed out by the expert? And besides, to begin with, has the expert shown impartiality and a really scientific spirit in naming the facts as she has named them? What she has called, for example, "interpolations" ( a word with a scientific appearance and an ambiguous significance) would others not call them "retouchings," "alterations," "insertions," (words no doubt more exact, and more precise)? In the same fashion, words like

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"additions" and especially "omissions" a r e neutralin appearance but, in reality, they hide some confused realities: a n "addition" or a n "omission" c a n b e honest o r dishonest; t h e y c a n c h a n g e nothing important in a text or they can, to the contrary, alter it profoundly. In the particular case that interests us here, those two words have a frankly benign appearance! 30. In any case it is impossible to consider those three expert opinions (Becker, Hubner a n d Sieburg) a s conclusive, since they had not been examined by a court. In fact, for some reasons of which I am unaware, Mr. Frank was to withdraw his complain a g a i n s t Lothar Stielau. If my information is c o r r e c t , Stielau agreed to pay 1000 Marks of the 15,712 Marks of the cost of the proceedings bogun. I suppose that Mr. Frank paid to the court of Lubeck those 1000 M a r k s a n d t h a t h e h a d a d d e d to t h a t sum 14,712 Marks for his own part. I recall that Mr. Frank told me that Lothar Stielau had, moreover, agreed to present him with his written apology. Lothar Stielau had lost his job a s a teacher a t the same time. Mr. Frank did not speak to me about Heinrich Buddeberg, Lothar Stielau's co-defendant. Perhaps Buddeberg himself a l s o h a d to t u r n o v e r 1000 M a r k s a n d to p r e s e n t his apologies. 31. I linger h e r e on t h e s e m a t t e r s of e x p e r t opinions only because in our interview Mr. Frank had himself lingered there, while not mentioning certain important facts (for oxamplo, tho existence of a third expert opinion), and while presenting to me the two expert opinions a s conclusive. The matter of the manuscripts did not interest me very much either. I knew that I would not have the time to examine them closely. W h r ~ tinteroetod mu most of all was to know how Mr. Frank would have explained to me the "unexplainable quantity of unlikely or inconcoivnble facts" that I had called attention to in reading the Diary. After all, what does it matter that some manuscripts, even declared authentic by some experts, contain this type of facts, if those facts could not have existed? But Mr. Frank w a s to show himself to be incapable of furnishing me with the least explanation. In my opinion he was expecting to see the authenticity of the Diary questioned by the usual arguments, of the psychological, literary o r historical o r d e r . He d i d not e x p e c t a r g u m e n t s of i n t e r n a l criticism bearing on the realities of material life: the realities which, a s one knows, a r e stubborn. In a moment of confusion, Mr. I had never thought Frank moreover declared to me: "But. about those material matters!"

..

32. Before coming to some precise examples of that confusion, I

owe it to the truth to say that on two occasions Mr. Frank gave me

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--

good answers and those were in regard to two episodes that I have not mentioned up to now, precisely because they were to find an explanation. The first episode was incomprehensible to me because of a small omission from the French translation (I did not possess a t that time the Dutch text). The second episode was incomprehensible to me because of a n error that figures in all the printed texts of the Diary. Where, on the date of 8 July 1944, it is a question of the male green grocer, the manuscript gives: "la marchande de legumes" ("the [female] green grocer"). And that is fortunate, for a careful reader of the book knows very well that the green grocer in question could not have delivered to those in hiding "19 pounds of green peas" (!) on 8 July 1944 for the good reason that he had been arrested 45 days before by the Germans for one of the most serious of reasons (he had had two Jews at his home). That act had set him "on the edge of an abyss' (25 May 1944). One has a hard time understanding how a green grocer leaps from "the abyss' in order to thus deliver to some other Jews s u c h u quantity of compromising morchandise. To toll the truth, one does not understand very much better the wife of t h a t unfortunate man, but the fact is there, the text of the manuscript is not absurd like that of the Dutch, French, German, and English printings. The writer of the manuscript had been more careful. It remains that the error of the printed texts was perhaps not a n error, but indeed a deliberate and unfortunate correction of the manuscript. Wo read, in fact, i11 tho printed Dutch text: "van der groenteboer om de hoek, 19 pond" (cries Margot); and Anne answers; "Dat is aarding van hem." In other words, Margot and Anne used the masculine on two occasions; "from the (male) . 19 pounds," Anne's answer: greengrocer on the corner "That's nice of him." For my p a r t , I would d r a w two other conclusions from that episode: (1) Internal criticism bearing on the coherence of a text allows us to detect some anomalies which are revealed to be true anomalies; (2) A reader of the Diary, having come to t h a t episode of 8 July 1944, would be right to declare absurd a book in which the hero ("the nice green grocer on the corner") leaps back out of the depths of the abyss a s one would rise up from the dead. 33. That greengrocer, Mr. Frank told me, was named Van der Hoeven. Deported for having harbored Jews at his home, he came back from deportation. At the time of the commemorative ceremonies, he had come back to appear a t the side of Mr. Frank. I asked Mr. Frank i f , after the w a r , some people from the neighborhood had declared to him: "We suspected the presence of people in hiding at 263 Prinsengracht." Mr. Frank clearly answered me that no one had suspected their presence, including the men of the store, including Lewin, also including Van der Hoeven. The latter supposedly helped them without knowing it!

..

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34. In spite of my repeated questions on this point, Mr. Frank was not able to tell me what his neighbors a t No. 261 sold or made. He did not remember that there had been in his own house, a t No. 263, a housekeeper described in the book a s a possible "enemy." He ended by answering me that she was "very, very old" and that she only came very rarely, perhaps once a week. I said to him that she must have been astonished to suddenly see the installation of the "swinging cupboard" on the landing of the second floor. He answered no, given that the housekeeper never came there. That answer was to provoke for the first time a kind of dispute between Mr. Frank and his wife, who was present at our interview. Beforehand, in fact, I had taken the precaution of having Mr. Frank make it clear to me that those in hiding had never done any housekeeping outside of cleaning a part of the annex. The logical conclusion of Mr. Frank's two statements therefore became: "For twenty-five months, no one had done any cleaning of the landing on the seconcf floor." In the face of that improbability, Mrs. Frnnk suddenly broke i n to say to her husband: "Nonsense! No clonning on that landing! In a factory! But thore would Iiave been dust this high!" What Mrs. Frank could have added is t h a t the landing w a s supposed to have served as a passageway for the people in hiding in their comings and goings between the annex and the front house. The trail of their goings and comings would have been obvious in the midst of so much accumulated dust, oven without taking into account the dust from the coal brought from downstairs. In fact, Mr. Frank could not have told the truth when he spoke in this way about a kind of phantom housekeeper for a house so vast and so dirty. 35. On several occasions, a t the beginning of our interview, Mr. Frank thus attempted to supply some oxplnnations which, finnlly, did not explain anything a t all and which led him, to the contrary, into some impasses. I must soy here that the presence of his wife was to prove to be especially useful. Mrs. Frank, who was very well acqu~inted with tho Diary, obviously believed u p to then in the authenticity of the Diary a s well a s in the sincerity of her husband. Her surprise was only more striking in the face of the terrible quality of Mr. Frank's answers to my questions. For myself, I retain a painful memory of what I would call certain "realizations" by Mrs. Frank. I do not a t all wish to say that Mrs. Frank today takes her husband for a liar. But I claim that Mrs. Frank was strongly conscious, at the time of our interview, of the anomalies and of the serious absurdities of the whole story of Anne Frank. Hearing the "explanations" of her husband, she came to use toward him some phrases of the following kind: "Nonsense!" "What you are saying is unbelievable!"

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"A vacuum cleaner! That is unbelievable! I had never noticed it!" "but you were really foolhardy!" "That was really foolhardy!" The most interesting remark t h a t Mrs. Frank made w a s the following: "I am sure that the people (of the neighborhood) knew that you were there." For my part, I would say rather: "I am sure that the people of the neighborhood would have seen, heard and smelled the presence of the persons in hiding, if there w e r e indeed some persons hidden in t h a t house for twenty-five months."
36. I would take one other example of Mr. Frank's explanations. According to him, the people who worked in the front house could not see the main part of the annex because of the "masking paper on the window panes." This statement, which is found in the brochure of the "museum," was repeated to me by Mr. Frank in the presence of his wife. Without pausing at that statement, I went on to another subject: that of the consumption of electricity. I made the remark that the consumption of electricity in the house must have been considerable. Since Mr. Frank was surprised by my remark, I stated it precisely: "That consumption must have been considerable since the electric light was on all day in the office on the courtyard and in the store on the courtyard in the front house.'' Mr. Frank then s a i d to me: "How is t h a t ? The electric light is not necessary in broad daylight!" I indicated to him how those rooms could not receive daylight, knowing that the windows had some "masking paper" on them. Mr. Frank then a n s w e r e d me t h a t those rooms w e r e not so very dark: a disconcerting answer which found itself in contradition with the statement of the booklet written by Mr. Frank: "Spices must be kept in the dark. ." (page 27 of the 36 page booklet mentioned above in paragraph 15). Mr. Frank then dared to add that, all the same, what one saw through those windows on the courtyard was only a wall. He specified, contrary to all evidence, that one did not see that it was the wall of a house! That detailcontradicted the following p a s s a g e of the s a m e prospectus; "therefore, although you saw windows, you could not see through them, and everyone took it for granted that they overlooked the garden" (ibidem). I asked if those masked windows were nevertheless sometimes open, if only for airing out the office w h e r e they received visitors, if only in the summer, on swelteringly hot days. Mrs. Frank agreed with me on that and remarked that those windows must all the same have been open sometimes. Silence from Mr. Frank.

37. The list of the noises left Mr. Frank, and especially Mrs.

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Frank, perplexed. As regards the vacuum cleaner, Mr. Frank was startled and declared to me: "But there could not have been a vacuum cleaner there." Then, in the face of my assurance that there had been one, he began to stammer. He told me that, if indeed there had been a vacuum cleaner, they must have run it in the evening, when the employees (the "enemies") had left the front house, after work. I objected that the noise of a vacuum cleaner of that era would have been so much better heard by the neighbors (the walls were "thin," 25 March 1943) a s it would have occurred in empty rooms or close to empty rooms. I revealed to him t h a t , in any c a s e , Mrs. Van Daan, for h e r p a r t , w a s supposed to have used that vacuum cleaner every day, regularly, at about 12:30 pm (the. window probably being open). Silence from Mr. Frank, while Mrs. Frank was visibly moved. The same silence for the alarm clock, with the sometimes untimely alarm (4 August 1943). The same silence for the removal of the ashes, expecially on swelteringly hot days. The same silence about the borrowing, by the persons in hiding, from the supply of coal (a rare commodity) common to the whole house. Even silence about the question of the bicycles used after their confiscation and after the prohibition of their use by Jews. 38. A number of questions therefore remained without answers or even a t first gave rise to some explanations by which Mr. Frank worsened his c a s e . Then Mr. Frank h a d , a s it w e r e , a windfall: a magic formula. That formula was the following: "Mr. Faurisson, you are theoretically and scientifically right. I agree with you 100 percent. . . . What you pointed out to me was, in fact, impossible. But, in practice, it was nevertheless in that way t h a t things happened." I pointed out to Mr. Frank t h a t his statement troubled me. I told him that it w a s almost a s if he agreed with me that a door could not be at the same time open and closed and a s if, in spite of that, he stated that he had seen such a door. I pointed out to him, in another connection, that the words "scientifically" and "theoretically" and "in practice" were unnecessary and introduced a distinction devoid of meaning since, in any case, "theoretically," "scientifically" or "practically," a door at the same time open and closed quite simply cannot exist. I a d d e d t h a t I would prefer to e a c h particular question an appropriate response or, if need be, no answer at all. 39. Near the beginning of our interview, Mr. Frank had made, in the friendliest way in the world, a major concession, a concession announced by me above, in paragraph 16. As I began to make him understand that I found absurd the explanations that he had furnished in his propectuses, both regarding the ignorance of the Germans about the architecture typical of Dutch houses

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and about the presence of smoke constantly above the roof of the annex (the "little factory"), he wanted to admit right away, without any insistence on my part, that it was a question there of pure inventions on his part. Without using, it is true, the word "inventions," he declared to me, in substance: "You are quite right. In the explanations that are given to visitors, it is necessary to simplify. That is not so serious. It is necessary to make that agreeable to visitors. This is not the scientific way of doing things. One is not always able to be scientific."
40. That confidential remark enlightens us on what I believe to be a character trait of Mr. Frank: Mr. Frank has the sense of what pleases the public and he seeks to adapt himself to it, free to take liberties with the truth. Mr. Frank is not a man to give himself a headache. He knows that the general public is satisfied with little. The general public seeks a sort of comfort, a sort of dream, a sort of easy world where it will be brought exactly the kind of emotion that confirms it in its habits of feeling, seeing and reasoning. That smoke above the roof could disturb the general public? What does it matter? Let's make up an explanation not necessarily probable, but simple and, if it is necessary, simple and crude. Perfection is reached if that fabrication confirms some accepted ideas or habitual feelings: for example, it is very probable that for those who love Anne Frank and who come to visit her house, the Germans are brutes and beasts; well, they will find a confirmation of that in Mr. Frank's explanations: the Germans went so far a s to be unaware of the architecture typical of the houses in Amsterdam (sic!). In a general way, Mr. Frank appeared to me, on more than one occasion, as a man devoid of finesse (but not of cunning) for whom a literary work is, in relation to reality, a form of lying contrivance, a domain where one takes liberties with the t r u t h , a thing which "is not so serious" and which allows for writing almost anything.

41. I asked Mr. Frank what explanations he could furnish me on the two points where he agreed t h a t he h a d said nothing serious to the visitors. He could not answer me. I questioned him about the layout of the premises. I had noted some anomalies in the plan of the house, such as it is reproduced-by Mr. Frank-in all the editions of the Diary. Those anomalies had been confirmed for me by my visit to the museum (taking account of the changes made in the premises in order to make it into a museum). It was then that once again Mr. Frank went on to be led, in the face of the physical evidence, to make some new and important concessions to me, especially, as is going to be seen in regard to the "swinging cupboard." He began by admitting that the diagram of the plan ought not to have concealed from the reader that the small courtyard which separates the front house from the annex

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was common to No. 263 (the Frank house) and to No, 265 (the house of their neighbors and "enemies"). It is also bizarre that, in the Diary, there was not the slightest allusion to the fact'which, for the persons in hiding, was of extreme importance. Mr. Frank then acknowledged that the diagram of the plan let people believe that on the third floor the flat roof was not accessible; but that roof was accessible by a door from the annex and it could very well have offered to the police or to the "enemies" a n easy way of access into the very h e a r t of t h e premises inhabited by the persons in hiding. Finally and especially, Mr. Frank conceded to me that the "swinging cupboard". . did not make any sense. He recognized that this ruse could not, in any case, have prevented a search of the annex, seeing that that annex was accessible in other ways, and especially in the most natural way-the entrance door leading out to the garden. That evidence, it is true, does not appear as one at the schema, since the schema does not contain any drawing of the whole ground floor. As to the museum visitors, they do not have access to this same ground floor. That famous "swinging cupboard" thus became a particularly s t r a n g e invention of "the persons in hiding." One must, in fact, think here that the making of that "swinging cupboard" was a dangerous job. The destruction of the stair steps, the assembling of that false cupboard, the change of a passageway into a n apparent dead end, all that could only give warning to the "enemies," All that had of course been suggested by Kraler a n d c a r r i e d out by Vossen (21 August 1942)!

42. The more t h a t my interview went on, the more the embarassment of Mr. Frank became visible. But his amiability did not fail; quite the contrary. At the end, Mr. Frank went on to use a sentimental argument, apparently clever and in a good natured tone. That argument was the following: "Yes, I agree with you, we were a little imprudent. Certain things were a little dangerous, it is necessary to recognize that. Besides, it is perhaps the reason why we were finally arrested. But do not believe, Mr. Faurisson, that the people were suspicious at that point." That curious argumentation went on to suggest to Mr. Frank sentences like: "The people were decent!" or even: '.'The Dutch were good!" or even, on two occasions: "The Police were good!"
43. Those sentences had only one inconvenience: they rendered absurd all of the "precautions" pointed out in the book. To a certain extent, they even robbed the book of its whole meaning. That book recounted, a s a matter of fact, the tragic adventure of eight persons hunted down, forced to hide, to bury themselves alive for twenty-five months in the midst of a ferociously hostile world. In those "days in the tomb" only some select few people knew of their existence and brought them help. One could say

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that in resorting to his last arguments, Mr. Frank tried with one hand to fill in the cracks in a work which, with the other hand, he was dismantling, 44. On the evening of our first day of interviews, Mr. Frank handed to me his own copy, in French, of the book by Ernst Schnabel: Spur eines Kindes (French title: Sur les traces dlAnne Frank; English title: Anne Frank: A Portrait in Courage). He told me t h a t I would perhaps find in t h a t book some a n s w e r s to certain of my questions. The pages of that copy were not cut. It should be mentioned that Mr. Frank speaks and understands French, but he reads it with a little difficulty. (I should make it clear here that all our interviews took place in English, a language that Mr. Frank has mastered porfectly.) I had not yet read that book, since the strict observance of the methods proper to pure internal criticism obliges one to read nothing about a work so Iorlg O H o n o I I I I H t l o t yol j~orsorictlly gotton r i c:loc~r idon of tlint work. During t l ~ onight that proceeded our second interview, I g1t11lc:cd tl~rougli1110 book. Among t~ dozen points that acted to confirm to mo t h f ~ ttho Diary was n fable (in spite of the fact that Schnabel made rnrlIiy efforts to persuade us of the contrary), I call attention to nn amazing pnssnge on page 151 of the French l o x [ . 'l'hut p r ~ s e r ~ g o concurnod Mr. Vossen, tho man who, it seemed, h a d devoted himself, a s c a r p e n t e r to making the "swinging cupbourd" intended to conceal the porsons inbiding (Diary, 21 August 1942). "Good old Vossen" was supposed to work at 263 Prinsengracht. Ho kept tlie persons in hiding uptodate on everything that took place in the store. But illness had forc:od him t o rotiro to his horno, where his daughter Elli joined him a f t e r h e r own work hours. On 1 5 J u n e 1943, Anne spoke nbout him a s rl procious friend. But, i f one believes a remark of Elli reported by Schnabel, good old Vossen . . was unaware of t h e existence of tho Franks at 263 Prinsengracht! Elli recounts, in fact, that on 4 August 1944, when she returned to her residence, she informed her father of the arrest of the Franks. The French text of Schnabel says: "I was seated a t the side of the bed and I had told him everything. My father very much liked Mr. Frank, whom he had known for a long time. He was not aware that the Franks had not left for Switzerland, a s was claimed, but had hidden themselves on the Prinsengracht." But what is incomprehensible is that Vossen could have believed in that rumor. For nearly a year he had seen the Franks a t Prinsengracht, he had spoken with them, he had helped them and he had become their friend. Then, when because of his bad health he had left his job on the Prinsengracht, his daughter Elli was able to keep him up to date on the doings of his friends, the Franks.

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45. Mr. Frank was not able to explain to me that passage from Schnabel's book. Rushing to the German and the English texts of the same work, he made a surprising discovery: the whole passage where Elli spoke with her father did indeed appear in those texts, but, lacking the sentence beginning with: "He was not a w a r e . and ending with: "the Prinsengracht." In the French text, Elli continued: "I1 ne dit rien. I1 restait couche e n silence." for comparison, here is the German text:

. ."

Ich setze mich zu ihm ans Bett und habe ihm alles gesagt. Ef hing sehr an Herrn Frank, denn er kannte ihn lange (passage missing). Gesagt hat e r nichts. Er hat nur dagelegen. (Anne Frank / Ein Bericht von Ernst Schnabel, Spur eines Kindes, Fischer Bucherei, 1958,168 pages, p. 115.)

And here is the English text:

I sat down beside his bed and told him everything. He was deeply attached to Mr. Frank, who he had known a long time (passage missing). He said nothing. (Anne Frank: A Portait in Courage, Ernst Schnabel, Translated from the German by Richard a n d Clara Winston, H a r b r a c e P a p e r b a c k Library, H a r c o u r t , Brace & World, Inc., New York, 1958,181 pages, p. 132.)

46. After returning to France, it was easy for me to clear up this mystery: from many other points in the French text it became evident that there had existed two original German versions. The first version of Schnabel must have been sent in "tapuscript" to the French publishing house of Albin Michel so that from it there could be prepared a translation into French, without losing time. Thereupon Schnabel or, very probably, Mr. Frank, had gone on to do a revision of its text. He had then left out the problematical sentence about Vossen. Then Fischer published that corrected version. But in France they had done the job in double quick time a n d the book had a l r e a d y left the presses. It w a s too late to correct it. I note moreover a bibliographical curiosity: my copy of Sur les traces d'Anne Frank (translated from the German by Marthe Metzger Editions Albin Michel, 1958, 205 pages) bears a reference to "18th thousand" and its date for the completion of printing w a s in F e b r u a r y 1958. But the first thousand of the original German edition was in March 1958. The translation therefore did indeed appear before the original.

47. It remains, of course, to know why Ernst Schnabel or Mr. Frank had believed it proper to proceed with t h a t amazing correction. The fact remtlins that Mr. F r m k showed his confusion once more in the face of this further anomaly. We took leave of each other in the most painful of atmospheres, where each token of friendliness that Mr. Frank showed me embarrassed me a little more. Shortly after my return to France, I wrote to Mr. Frank to thank him for his hospitality and to ask him Elli's address. He

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answered me pleasantly while asking me to send him the French li copy of Schnabel's book, and without speaking to me about El I sent his copy back to him while again asking him for the address. No answer this time. I telephoned him a t Birsfelden. He responded to me that he would not give me that address, and especially now that I had sent to Kraler (Kugler) an "idiotic" letter. I will come back to that letter.

Chapter Four
48. Bibliographical examination: some curious silences and revelations.
'

49. The previously mentioned book by Schnabel (Anne Frank: A Portrait in Courage) has some curious omissions, while the long article, unsigned, t h a t Der Spiegel (1 April 1959, pp.51-55) devoted to the Diary, in the wake of the Stielau case, brings us some curious revelations. The title of that article is eloquent: "Anne Frank. Was Schrieb das Kind?" ("Anne Frank. What did the Child Write?") 50. Ernst Schnabel openly defended Anne Frank a n d Otto Frank. His book is relatively rich on all that precedes and on all that follows the twenty-five months of their life a t Prinsengracht. On the other hand, it is very poor concerning those twenty-five months. One would say that the direct witnesses (Miep, Elli, Kraler, Koophuis, Henk) have nothing to say on that very important period. Why do they remain silent in that way? Why have they said only some commonplace things like: "When we had our plnto of ~ 0 1 1 1 ) ~ ~ p ~ t will1 thonl ( 1 1 1 1 o o 1 1 , . . ." (pugo 114)* or; n i r ~ "We ulwoys hud lunch together, . . ." (page 117)? Not one concrete detail, not one description, not ono nnecdote is there that by its preciseness would give the impression that the persons in hiding and their faithful friends regularly ate together this way at noon. Everything appears in a kind of fog. But those witnesses were questioned only thirteen years, at the most, after the arrest of the Franks, and certain of them like Elli, Miep and Henk, were still young. I a m not talking about riumerous other persons whom Schnabel wrongly calls "witnesses" but who, in fact, had never known or even met the Franks. This is the case, for example, with the famous "green grocer." The "Gemusernann," "He did not know the Franks a t all" (page 8 2 ) . In a general way, the impression t h a t I derived from reading Schnabel's book is the following: this Anno Frank had really existed; she had been a *Translator's note: This and aLl subsequent page references to the Schnabel book refer to the English translation published by Harbrace Paperback Library, New York. 1958.

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little girl without great character, without strong personality, without scholarly precociousness (to the contrary even), and no one suspected her of having a n aptitude for writing; that unfortunate child knew the horrors of war; she had been arrested by the Germans; s h e h a d been interned, then deported; s h e passed through the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau; she had been separated from her father; her mother died in the hospital a t Birkenau on 6 January 1945; in approximately October of 1944 she and her sister were transferred to the camp at Bergen-Belsen; Margot died of typhus; then, in h e r t u r n , Anne, alone'in the world, was also to die of typhus in March of 1945. These are some points about which the witnesses did not hesitate to talk. But with all of them one senses mistrust in the presence of the legendary Anne, who was capable of taking up the pen a s we have been told, capable of keeping that Diary and writing those stories, and writing "the beginning of a novel," etc. Schnabel himself writes a very revealing sentence when he declares: "My witnesses had a good deal to say about Anne a s a person; they took account of the legend only with great reticence, or by tacitly ignoring it. Although they did not take issue with it by so much a s a word, I had the impression that they were checking themselves. All of them read Anne's diary; they did not mention it." (pages 4 5 ) That last sentence is important "A11 of them had read Anne's diary: they did not mention it." Even Kraler, who sent a long letter to Schnabel from Toronto, did not make mention either of the Diary or of Anne's other writings (page 87). Kraler is the only direct witness to tell an anecdote or two about Anne; but, in a very curious way, he places these anecdotes in the period of time when the Franks still lived in their apartment on Merwedeplein, before their "disappearance" ["before they went into hiding," p.87). It is only in the corrected edition that the second anecdote is placed at Prinsengracht, even "when they were in the secret annex" (page 88). The witnesses did not wish that their names be published. The two most important witnesses (the "probable betrayer" and the Austrian policeman) were neither questioned nor even sought out. Schnabel attempts on several occasions to explain that curious failure (pages 8, 139 and all of the end of chapter ten). He goes so f a r as to present a sort of defense of the arresting officer! One person nevertheless does mention the Diary, but that is to draw attention to a point in it which seems bizarre to her concerning the Montessori school of which she was the director (page 40). Schnabel himself treats the Diary strangely. How to explain, indeed, the cutting that he does when he cites a passage like that of his page 123? Quoting a long passage from the letter of 11 April 1944 in which Anne tells about the police raid in the wake of the burglary, he leaves out the sentence in which Anne gives the main reason for her distress; that reason

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w a s t h a t the police, it a p p e a r e d , went so f a r a s to give the "swinging cupboard" some loud blows. ("This, and when the police rattled the cupboard door, were my worst moments.") Wouldn't Schnabel have thought, like any sensible man, that that passage is absurd? In any case, he tells us that he visited 263 Prinsengracht before its transformation into a museum. He did not see any "swinging cupboard" there. He writes: "The c u p board that was built against the door to disguise it has been pulled down. Nothing is left but the twisted hinges hanging beside the door." (page 74) He did not find any t r a c e of a special camouflngo, but only. in Anne's room, n yellowed piece of curtain "A tuttorod, yollowud renl~lantof curtain still hangs at the window." (pngo 75). Mr. Frn~lk,t sourns, rriarkod in pencil on the i wall paper, near one door, the successive heights of his daughters. Today, at the museum, the visitors can see an impeccable square of wall paper, placed under glass, where they notice the perfectly prosorvod pcricil marks which uppear to have been drawn the same day. They tell us that these pencil marks indicated the heights of Mr. Frank's children. When I saw Mr. Frank a t Birsfelden, I asked him if it was not a question there of a "reconstruction." He assured me all that was authentic. But this is difficult to believe. Schnabel himself had simply seen, as a mark, an "A 42" which he interpreted thus: "Anne 1942." What is strange is that the "authentic" paper in the museum does not bear anything like that Schnabel said that he had seen, only that mark and that the others had been destroyed or torn off ("the othor murks Iiave beon strippod off. . . " [ibideni].) Might Mr. Frank have made himself guilty here of a trick ("ein Trick"), like that which lie htid suggostod to Iienk and to Miep for the photocopy of their passport? A very interesting point about Anne's story concerns the manuscripts. I regret to say that I find very unlikely the account of the discovery of those many scripts, then their passing on to Mr. Frank by his secretary Miep. The police supposedly scattered the floor with all sorts of papers. Among those papers, Miep and Elli supposedly gathered up a "Scotch notebook" ("ein rotkariertes Buch"; a red plaid book) and many other writings in which they a r e supposed to have recognized Anne's writing. They supposedly did not read anything. They a r e supposed to have put all these papers aside in the large office. Then, those papers supposedly were handed over to Mr. Frank at the time of his raturn from Poland (pages 179-181.) That account does not agree at all with the account of the arrest. The arrest was made slowly, methodically, correctly, exactly like the search. The testimonies are unanimous on that point (see chapter nine). After the arrest, the police came back to the premises on several occasions; they

Anne Frank

especially interrogated Miep. The police wished to know if the Franks were in contact with other persons in hiding. The Diary, such a s we know it, would have revealed, at first glace, a great deal of information valuable to the police, and would have been terribly compromising for Miep, Elli, and for all the friends of the persons in hiding. The police could have disregarded the "Scotch notebook" if, in its original condition, it consisted, a s I think, only of some drawings, some photographs or notes of a harmless nature. But it would appear unlikely that they would have left there several notebooks and several hundreds of scattered pages, on which the handwriting was, at least in appearance, that of a n adult. On the part of Elli and Miep, it would have been madness to gather together and to keep, especially in the office, such a mass of compromising documents. It would appear that they knew that Anne kept a diary. In a diary one is supposed to tell w h a t happens from day to day. Consequently, Anne risked mentioning Miep and Elli in them. 51. In r e g a r d to the book by Schnabel, Mr. Frank made a surprising revelation to me. He told me.that that book, although translated into several languages, had not been translated into Dutch! The reason for the exception w a s t h a t the principal witnesses living in the Netherlands said that, because of modesty as well a s because of of a concern for their peace and quiet, they wished that people not talk about them. In reality, Mr. Frank was mistaken or else he was deceiving me. An investigation conducted in Amsterdam a t first led me to believe that Schnabel's book had not been translated into Dutch, Even the Contact publishing house replied or had several libraries or several private individuals reply that that book did not e;,ist. I discovered then that, in a showcase a t the "Anne Frank House" museum, t h e book by Schnabel was shown as having been translated into Dutch and published in 1970 (twelve years after its publication in Germany, in F r a n c e a n d in the United States!) under the title of: H a a r laatste Levensmaanden (Her Last Months). The book unfortunately was not to be found. The same responses from the libraries a n d from the Contact publishing house. As a result of my insistance, Contact finally replied to me that there remained with them only one archive copy. With some difficulty I got permission to consult it, and then to get a photocopy of pages 263 to 304. For, in reality, the work in question contained only an extract from Schnabel's book, reduced to 35 pages, and placed as an appendix to the text of the Diary. The comparative study of Spur eines Kindes a n d of its "translation" into Dutch isof the greatest interest. Of the book by Schnabel, the Dutch can only read the five last chapters (out of thirteen chapters in all). Moreover, three of those five chapters have undergone cuts of all sorts. Certain of those c u t s a r e marked by ellipses. Others a r e not

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marked a t all. The chapters thus cut up a r e Chapters Nine, Ten and Thirteen- that is to say those which concern, on the one hand, the arrest and its direct results (in the Netherlands) and, on the other hand, the history of the manuscripts. When it is no longer a question of those subjects, when it is a question of the camps (which is the case in Chapters Eleven and Thirteen), ihe original text by Schnabel is respected. Examined closely, those cuts seem to have been introduced to remove the somewhat precise details which appear in the testimonies of Koophuis, Miep, Henk and Elli. For example, it lacks, without anything to indicate to u s the existence of a cut, the essential passage where E l tells how she li told her father about the arrest of the Franks (the 13 lines of page 115 of Spur are completely absent from page 272 of Haar Laatste Levensmaunden). It is odd that the only nation for whom they have thus reserved a censored version of the life of Anne Frank is precisely that one where the adventure of Anne Frank took place. Can you imagine some revelations about Joan of Arc that would be made to all sorts of foreign nations, but would be forbidden in some way to the French people? Such a way of acting is unders t a n d a b l e only when the editors f e a r that, in the country of origin, the "revelations" would have rather quickly appeared suspect. The explanation given by Mr. Frank hardly holds. Since Koophuis, Miop. IIenk n n d Elli find themselvos named anyhow (moroover by sonlo complete or partial pseudonyms), and since Schnabel has them make such and such remarks, one does not sue liow tliu cuts irltroduced into those remarks can soothe the sensitive modesty of their authors or assure them more tranquility in their life in Amsterdam. I would believe rather that the preparntion of the Dutch trnnsl~tiongavo rise to some very long and urriong all the interested parties or, at least, arduous burg~ii~ling between Mr. Frank, but, as the years passed, they become more cautious and more sparing with details than in their original "testimonies."
52. The above-mentioned article from Der Spiegel brings us, a s I have said, some curious revelations. As a matter of principle I distrust journalists. They work too quickly. Here it is obvious that the journalist corcjed out a thorough investigation. The issue was too burning and too sensitive to be treated lightly. The conclusion of tho long nrticle c:ould iridood be the following: While suspecting the D i a r y of being a forgery, Lothor Stielau p e r h a p s proved nothing, but all the same he "ran into a really tricky problem-the problem of the genesis of the publishing of the book" ("auf ein tatsachlich heikles Problem gestossen-das Problem der Enstehung der Buchausgabe," page 51). And it is revealed that we a r e very f a r from the text of the original manuscripts when we read in Dutch, in German and in whatever language, the book entitled

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the Diary of Anne Frank. Supposing for a moment t h a t the manuscripts a r e authentic, it is necessary to be aware that a s a matter of fact what we read under that title, for example in Dutch (that is to say in the supposedly original language), is only the result of a whole s e r i e s of operations of reorganizing a n d rewriting, participated in especially by Mr. Frank and some close friends, among whom were (for the Dutch text) Mr. And Mrs. Cauvern and (for the German text) Anneliese Schutz, whose pupil Anne had been. 53. Between the original form of the book (the manuscri~tsj and its printed form (the Dutch edition from Contact in 1947), the text has known at least five forms in succession. First form: between the end of May 1945 and October 1945, Mr. Frank had drawn up a sort of copy ("Abschrift") from the manuscripts, in part alone, in part with the help of his secretary Isa Cauvern (that woman was the wife of Albert Cauvern, a friend of Mr. Frank; before the war, the Cauverns had welcomed the Frank children to their home for vacations). Second form: from October 1945 to January 1946, Mr. Frank a n d Isa Cauvern worked together on a new version of the copy, a typed version ("Neufassung d e r Abschrift"/"Maschinengeschriebene Zweitfassung"). Third form: at an unspecified date (the end of the winter of 1945-1946), that second version (typed) was submitted to Albert Cauvern; he, insofar as he was a radio man-was a n announcer with the "De Vara" radio network in Hilversum-he knew about rewriting manuscripts. According to his own words, he began by "tolerably changing" that version; he drew up his own text a s a "man of experience" ("Albert Cauvern stellt heute nicht in Abrede, dass er jene maschinengeschriebene Zweitfassung mit kundiger Hand redigiert hat: 'Am Anfang hobe ich ziemlich vie1 geandert," page 52.) A detail that is surprising for a diary: he does not fear to regroup under a single date some letters written on different dates; on a second occasion he limited himself to correcting the punctuation a s well as mistakes of phrasing and grammar; all those changes and corrections were carried out on the typed text; Albert Cauvern never saw the original manuscripts. Fourth form: from the changes and corrections, Mr. Frank drew up what one can call the third typed text in the spring of 1946; he submitted the result to "three prominent experts" ("drei prominente Gutachter," page 53), while letting them believe that it was a question of the complete reproduction of a manuscript, with the very understandable exception of some personal points of order; then, those three persons having apparently given their guarantee to the text, Mr. Frank went on to offer it to several publishing houses in Amsterdam which refused it; turning then, in all probability, to one of those three persons, Mrs. Anna Romein-

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Verschoor. He got the latter's husband, Mr. Jan Romein, Professor of History of the Netherlands a t the University of Amsterdam to write in the daily newspaper Het Parool a famous article which began with these words: "There has by chance fallen into my hands a diary (etc.)": since the article was very laudatory, a modest Amsterdam publishing house (Contact) asked to publish that diary. Fifth form: with tho agreement once concluded or in the process of being concluded, Mr. Frank went to find several "~piritilolC O U I ~ H O ~ O ~ S("mehroro goistlich Rotgebor"), one of '' whom was Pastor Buskos: he grnnted tllom full nuthority to censor the text (" raum te ihnen freiwillig Zensoren-Befugnisse gin," pages 53-54). And that censorship was carried out.
54. But the oddities do not end there. The German text of the Diury lorniv tho subject of interovting remarks on the part of the journalist from Der Spiegel. He writes: "One curiosity of the 'Anne Frank literature' is the translation work of Anneliese Schutz, of which Schnabel said: 'I would wish that all translations were so faithful,' but whose text very often diverges from the Dutch original" (page 54). In fact, a s I will show below (paragraphs 72-1031,tho journtllist is quite lonient in his criticism whon he says that the Gerrnen text diverges very often from what he calls thc originnl (that is to soy, without doubt, from the original prin tcd by the Dutch). The printed Gormon text does not have the right to be c a l l e d a t r a n s l a t i o n f r o m t h e p r i n t e d Dutch: it constitutes, properly speaking, another book by itself. But let us pass over this point. We will return to it.

Anneliese Schutz, a great friend of the Franks, like them a Jewish German refugee in the Netherlands, and Anne's teacher, therefore prepared a text, in German, of the diary of her former pupil. She settled down to that work for Anne's grandmother! The l a t t e r , very a g e d , d i d not in f a c t r e a d Dutch. S h e t h e r e f o r e needed a translation into German, the Franks' mother tongue. Anneliese Schutz composed her "translation" "in the perspective -of the grandmother" ("aus der Grossmutter-Perspektive," page 55). She took. some amazing liberties. Where, according to her recollections, Anne had expressed herself better, she made her express herself better! The grandmother had the right to that! . . . dio Grossmuttor hnho ain Recht dnrnuf, mohr zu erfahrenvor ttllon~ dort, 'wo Anno noch rneiner Erirlrierurlg etwas besseres gesagt hatte"' (ibidem). Let it be said in passing that Anneliese Schutz is nclvor rnorltiorlod by Anno F r a ~ l k tho Diary. Are we to in understand that she had lived close to Anne or that she had mot her during the twenty-livo montlls when she hid a t the Prinsengracht? To the "perspective of the grandmother," which dictated certain "obligations," there was added what one can call the
' I

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"commercial perspective" which dictated other obligations. As a matter of fact, when the time came to publish the Diary in Germany, Anneliese Schutz inserted some new alterations. Let us take an example that she herself mentions. The manuscript, they say, included the following sentence: " . no greater hostility in the world than between the Germans and the Jews" (ibidem). Ameliese Schutz declared to the journalist of Der Spiegel: "I always told myself that a book, destined to be sold in Germany, cannot contain an expression insulting to the Germans" (ibidem). For my part, I would say that that argumentation a t one and the same time of the commercial, sentimental and political order is understandable, if need be coming from a woman of Berlin Jewish origin, who had been a militant before the war in a suffragette movement and who had had to leave her own country for political reasons, but otherwise that argumentation is all the less acceptable since the "insulting" remarks have been and continue to be spread in the millions of copies of' the Diary sold tl~rougl~out the world in languages other than German. And I am not speaking here from the simple point of view of respect for the truth.

..

55. O n o doos n o t hnvo t h o improusion t h n t Mr. Frank's "collaborators" in the publishing of' the Diary were especially pleased with their work, nor that thoy were ospeciolly delighted about the fuss made about that Diary. Let us take thoso collaborators one by one: About Isa Cauvern, we can say nothing, except that she committed suicide by throwing herself out of her window in June of 1946. Mr. Frank hnd just signed or was going to sign his contract for publication with Contact. The motive for that suicide ~ is not known to us nnd it is I I prosont impossible to ostu1)lish u tio of some kind between that suicide and the affair of the Diary. As rognrds the porson wllo wroto I l ~ oprofr~c:o,Annr~RomoinVarschoor, s h c ~ wrls to cloc:lr~rolo nor. Spiogol iri 1050: "I w r ~ unot at all a~ispicious onougll" ("lch bin wolil nic:ht rnisstrr~lii~~:ll gonllg geweson"). Her Iiuubtlncl I i ~ i t l boon I I O moro s ~ ~ s p i [ : i o Alt~urt ~~u. Cauvern htid not boon ~ b l o obttlirl I'r30m Mr. I:runk tho roturn of' to the typod text on wllicll Ilo l ~ r ~ d workocl. 110 I i t ~ t r ~ v k o t l tllut toxt i for "in memory of my wife" who died in 1046. Mr. Frank hud not sent the text in question. Durt Baschwitz, a friend of Mr. Frank, was one of the "three eminent persons" (the two others being Mr. and Mrs. Romein). In 1959, he was to plead for a n "agreement" between Mr. Frank and Lothar Stielau. He recommended, on the other hand, a complete publication of the text of the manuscripts to resolve the problem. To know what the text was in reality, that solution would have been, a s a matter of fact, that most suitable. Anneliese Schutz, for her part, was to show her disapproval both of the "Anne Frank Myth" and of the attitude of Mr. Frank with regard to Lothar Stielau. She was in favor of a policy of silence:

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the least fuss possible about Anne Frank and her Diary. She went so far as to disapprove of Mr. Frank and Ernst Schnabel for Spur eines Kindes: what need was there for that book? As regards to Stielau, if he had made the remark which Mr. Frank criticized him for, the latter hurl only to act a s if he did not hear it. That "sharp" ("scharf") (ibidem) reaction by Anneliese Schutz was all the more peculiar since this woman presented herself as the "translator" of the Diary into German and since Ernst Schnabel had-but perhaps she did not know it-pushed kindness so far a s to have declared with regard to that improbable "translation": "Ich wunschte, alle Ubersetzungen waren so getreu" (page 54) (I would wish that all translations were so faithful").

Chapter Five
56. Return to Amsterdam for a new investigation: the hearing
of the witnesses turned out to be unfavorable to Mr. Frank. The

probable truth.
57. The internal criticism of the Diury had led me to think that the Diary was a "cock and bull story," a novel, a lie. The s u b sequent investigations had only served to reinforce that judgement. But, if 1 indood saw where tlio lie was, I did not seo as well where the truth was. I saw indeed that the Frank family could not have lived for twenty-five months at 263 Prinsengracht in the way they claimed. But how had they lived in reality? Where? With whom? And finally, was i t indeed t i t 263 Prinsengracht that they had been arrested?

58. Without any illusions about the answer that he would give me, I posed those questions to Kraler (by his real name, Kugler) in a letter that I sent to him in Canada. I asked him likewise if Anne appeared to him to have been the author of the Diary and how he could explain to me why Vossen (by his real name, Voskuyl) had believed t h a t the F r a n k s were somewhere other than a t 263 Prinsengracht, a n d even in Switzerland, to be precise. His response was discourteous. He sent my letter and his response to Mr. Frank. It is t h a t letter which Mr. Frank called "idiotic" during a telephone conversation. It is, I suppose, that response which, one year later, earned Kraler a prize of $10,000 from an institution for having "protected Anne Frank and her family during the war, in Amsterdam" (see the Hamburger Abendblatt, 6 June 1978, page 13). Disregarding its discourtesy, the response from Kraler was not lacking in interest for me. Kraler responded to me that Vossen's suggestion concerning the presence of the

Anne Frank

Franks in Switzerland "was made to protect the family which was in hiding" (letter of 1 4 April 1977). He added, in regard to Anne, "there have been other greatly gifted young people, even younger than Anne." I found that the first point of this answer was precise but incomprehensible if one recalls that Vossen had, according to his own daughter, the personal feeling that the Franks were in Switzerland, As to the second point of the answer, its stereotyped character was striking coming from a man whose only difficulty ought to have been in choosing among several precise and convincing answers. Kraler, a s a matter of fact, was supposed to have lived for 25 months in almost daily contact with that Anne Frank whose "diary" was a n open secret, it seems, for those who knew her. 59. Listening to Elli on 30 November 1977, then to Miep and Henk on 2 December 1977, I w a s s t r u c k right a w a y with t h e impression that these three persons had not a t all lived for 25 months in contact with the Franks and with the other persons in hiding in the manner in which this is presented to us in the Diary. On the other hand, I became convinced that Miep and Elli had at least been present at 263 Prinsengracht on 4 August 1944, a t the time of the police raid. It is difficult for me to account otherwise for the insistence with which Elli and Miep evaded my questions on the 25 months, while coming back over and over again to the day of 4 August 1944. Elli, of whom I had much difficulty in finding any trace, expected neither my visit, nor the type of detailed questions I was going to put to her. Miep and Henk were expecting my visit and knew that I had seen Mr. Frank. My questions were brief, limited in number, and, with certain exceptions, I did not point out to my witnesses either their mutual contradictions or their contradictions with the Diary. Elli, full of good will, seemed to me to have a good memory of the war years and of the minor events of her daily life in those days (she was 23 years old in 1944). But, in regard to those twenty-five months, her answers to my questions were for the most part: "I do not know . . . I do not recall . . . 1 cannot explain to you . . . " "The coal storage place? It was in the Van Daans' room." "The ashes? I suppose that the men took them down." "The night watchman Slagter? I have never heard him spoken of; after the war, we had a secretary who had that name." "Lewin? I never had anything to do with him." "The 'swinging cupboard'? You a r e right, it was useless, but it was a camouflage for strangers." I asked Elli to describe to me first the front house, then the annex. For the front house, she was able to give me some details; it is true that she worked there. For the annex, her answer was interesting. She declared to me that she had, all in all, spent only one night there! She added that she did not remember the premises, since she had been very

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nervous. But, in the Diary, Elli is supposed to have come to take almost all of her mid-day meals with the people in hiding (see 5 August 1943: Elli arrives regularly a t 12:45 pm; 20 August 1943: she arrives regularly at 5:30 pm as a messenger of freedom; 2 March 1944: she does the dishes with the two families' mothers). In conclusion, I asked Elli to recall for me any detail of family life, any anecdote which does not appear in the book. She showed herself to be totally incapable of doing that. 60. Miep and Henk were likewise incapable of furnishing me with the least detail on the life of the people in hiding. The most important sentence of their testimony was the following: "We did not know exactly how they lived." And in addition: "We were only in the annex for one weekend; we slept in the Future room of Anne and Dussel." "How did the persons in hiding keep themselves warm? Perhaps with gas." "The coal storage place was downstairs in the store." "There was no vacuum cleaner." "The greengrocer did not bring anything to Prinsengracht." "The 'swinging cupboard' had been constructed well before the arrival of the Franks" (!) "I myself, Miep, I brought the vegetables, while Elli brought the milk." "I myself, Henk, worked elsewhere than in the business, but overy day I came to have lunch in the office of the girls and I came to speak to them for 15 or 20 minutes." (This point, among others, is in total contradiction with the Diary, where it is said that Henk, Miep and Elli took their lunch in the annex, with the people in hiding. See 5 August 1943.) During our entire interview, Miep gave me the impression of being almost in agony. Her gaze avoided me. When I finally let her speak to me about 4 August 1944, her attitude suddenly changed completely. It was with obvious pleasure that she began to call to mind, with a great abundance of details, the arrival of the police and its results. I noted, however, a striking disproportion in the details of the account. Those details were numerous, vivid and obviously truthful when Miep was calling to mind what had personally happened to her with the Austrian arresting officer, Silberbauer, either that day or on the following days. But, when it was a question of the Franks and of their companions in misfortune, the details became scanty and unclear. Thus it was that Miep had seen nothing of the arrest of the persons in hiding. She had not seen them leave. She had not seen them climb into the police vehicle, since t h a t vehicle, which she h a d seen through the window of her office, "was too near the wall of the house." From a distance from the other side of the canal, Henk had seen the police vehicle, but without being able to recognize the people who were entering or leaving. In regard to the manuscripts, Miep repeated to me the account that she had given to Schnabel. She told me also that Mr. Frank, after returning to the Netherlands at

Anne Frank

the end of May of 1945, lived for seven years under their roof. It was only toward the end of June or the beginning of July of 1945 that she had returned the manuscripts to him. 61. In the wake of those two interviews my judgement became the following: These three persons must have, on the whole, told me the truth about their own lives. It is probably true that they had not been familiar with, so to speak, the annex. It is certainly true that, in the front house, life unfolded approximately as they had recounted it to me (mid-day meal taken together in the office of the secretaries; the men of the store eating in the store; small food errands made in the neighborhood, etc.). It is certainly true that a police raid took place on 4 August 1944 and the Miep had had business on that day and on the following days with a Karl Silberbauor. I t is prohr~l~lo, tlio ot Iior hfincl. t llri t t l i o ~ ot llroo on persons maintained some relations with the Frank family. In that case, why did they so obviously feel reluctant to speak about it? Let us suppose, a s a matter of fact, that the Franks and some other persons in hiding had really lived for 25 months in proximity to those three persons. In that case, why such a silence?
62. The answer to these questions could be the following: tho

Franks and, perhaps, some other Jews did actually live in the annex of 263 Prinsengracht. But they lived there quite differently than the Diary relates. For example, they lived a life there that was no doubt cautious, but not like a prison. They were able to live there a s did so many other Jews who hid themselves either in the city, or in the countryside. They "hid themselves without hiding." Their adventure was sadly commonplace. It did not have that fantastic, absurd and obviously deceitful character that Mr. Frank had wonted to pass off a s being realistic, authentic and true to life. After the war, just a s much a s tho friends of Mr. Frank w e r e p r e p ~ r e d tostify o n his behalf, so wore they to hesitant to guarantee the narrative of the Diary. Just a s much a s they were able to offer themselves a s guarantors of the real sufferings of Mr. Frank and of his family, so did it seem difficult for them to bear witness, in addition, to imaginary sufferings. Kraler, Koophuis, Miep, Elli, Henk showed their friendship to Mr. Frank; they publicly showed their sympathy for him a s for a man full of charm a n d , a t the same time, overwhelmed with misfortunes. Perhaps they felt flattered to be presented in the press a s his companions in his days of misfortune. Perhaps certain among them accepted the idea that, when a man has suffered, he h a s the moral right to exaggerate somewhat the story of his sufferings. In the eyes of certain of them, the main point could have been t h a t Mr. Frank and his family h a d h a d to suffer cruelly at the hands of the Germans; in that case the "details" of

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those sufferings mattered little. But kindness has its limits. Mr. Frank found only one person to guarantee his account of the existence of the Diary. That person was his former secretary and friend: Miep Van Santen (by her real name: Miep Gies). Still the testimony of Miep is strangely hesitant. Her testimony comes back to saying that a f t e r the a r r e s t of the Franks, she had gathered up from the floor of a room of the annex a diary, an account book, some notebooks and a certain number of loose leaf sheets. For her it was a matter of objects belonging to Anne Frank. Miep only gave that testimony in a n official form thirty years after the events, on 5 June 1974, in the office of Mr. Antoun Jacob Dragt, a notary in Amsterdam. Miep added that she had made the discovery with Elli. But, on the same day, in the presence of the same notary, the l a t t e r declared that she remembered having been there when those things had been discovered. The restraint is important a n d it must not have pleased Mr. Frank.
6 3 . Schnabel wrote (see above, p a r a g r a p h 50) that all the

"witnesses" whom h e had questioned-including, consequently,

Miop, I<lli, I l o r ~ krilitl K o o ] ) l i t ~ i ~ - l ~ l \ b011~1vod if thoy had to d as

protect themselvos against the legend of Anne Frank. He added that if they ull had read tho Diary, they nevertheless did not mention it. That last sentence means obviously that, in each interview with a witness, it was Schnabel himself who had to take the initiative in speaking of the Diary. We know that his book had not been published in the Netherlands, except in a shortened and censored form: it is in the Netherlands that the principal "witnesses" are located. For its part, the article from Der Spiegel (see, above, paragraph 55) proves that others of Mr. Frank's "Witnesses" have ended up having the same negative reactions. The foundations of the myth of Anne Frank-a myth that rests on the truth and authenticity of the Diary-have not been strengthened with time: they have crumbled.

Chapter Six
64. The "betrayer" and the person who arrested the Franks: why has Mr. Frank wanted to assure them anonymity?
65. Since 1944, Mr. Frank a n d his friends knew that their

alleged "betrayer" was named Van Maaren and the person who arrested them was named Silberbauer. Van Maaren was one of the employees in their store. Silberbauer was a non-commissioned officer of the Security Service (SD) in Amsterdam. In the Diary, as well as in the previously mentioned book by Schnabel, Van Maaren is called V.M. As regards Silberbauer, he is called

Anne Frank Silberthaler in Schnabel's book. It seems that at the time of the Liberation, Van Maaren had some trouble with the law in his country. His guilt could not be proved, Mr. Frank told me. "V.M. had had enough troubles like that and he should be left alone." Schnabel had not wanted to obtain the testimony of V.M. nor had he wanted to obtain that of the arresting officer. 66. In 1963, the world press suddenly echoed with a striking news story: Simon Wiesenthal had just rediscovered tho person who arrested the Franks. He was named Karl Silberbauer. He was u polico officiril in Vienna. Wiosonthal hr~d informed Mr. not Frank about his research. The latter, questioned by journalists, declared that he had known for nearly twenty years the name of the person who arrested him. He added that that entire affair was unfortunate and that Silberbauer had only done his duty in arresting him. Miep, for her part, declared that if she had used the pseudonym of Silberthaler to designate the arresting officer, that was only at the request of Mr. Frank; the latter had pointed out that there could, u s a rnattor of fact, bo some other persone bearing the name of Silberbauer to whom, consequently, some harm could be done: "(De Heer Frank) had mij verzocht de naam Silberthaler te noemen, omdat e r misschien nog meer mensen Silberbauer heetten en die zouden wij dan in diskrediet brengen" (Volkskrant, 21 November 1963). 67. There was a kind of struggle between Simon Wiesenthal and Mr. Frunk. It wus tlio latter who in u wuy got the beet of it. A s a matter of f a c t , Karl Silberbauer w a s , a t the end of eleven months, reinstated in the Viennese police. A disciplinary commission, sitting behind closod doors ( a s is the custom), released him. The judgement in tho appeal commission ("Oberdisziplinarkommission") was likewise favorable to Silberbauer, a s were also conclusions of a commission of inquiry of the Ministry of the Interior. Silberbauer had indeed arrested the Franks at 263 Prinsengracht, but his participation in "war crimes against the Jews or members of the resistance" could not be proved. In June of 1978, I obtained an interview with Simon Wiesenthal in his office in Vienna. In regard to that affair, he declared to me that Mr. Frank was "crazy." In his opinion, Mr. Frank, in his concern to maintain a cult (that of his daughter), meant to spare the former Nazis, while he, Simon Wiesenthal, h a d only one concern: that of seeing justice done. Simon Wiesenthal did not know the real name of the store employee V.M. There again Mr. Frank h a d done w h a t w a s necessary: the Royal Institute of Documentation (for the Second World War), directed by his friend Louis De Jong, responded, if we a r e to believe a n Amsterdam newspaper (Trouw, 22 November 1963), that that name

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would not be given to Mr. Wiesenthal, even if he asked for it: " . deze naam zou men zelfs a a n Mr. Wiesenthal niet doorgeven, wanneer deze daarom zou verzoeken".

. .

68. The authorities in Vienna were not able to authorize me to consult the records of the commissions of inquiry. As to Karl Silberbauer, he died in 1972. My inquiry was therefore limited to the analysis of some Dutch, German and French newpapers from 1963 and 1964 and to the interviewing of a witness whom I believe to be well informed, honest and the possessor of a good memory. That witness begged us, my companion and myself, not to reveal his name. I have promised to say nothing about his name. I will keep my promise only half-way. The importance of his testimony is such that it seemed impossible to me to pass over it in silence. The name of that witness and his address a s well as the name of my companion and his address a r e put down in a sealed envelope. 69. Here is, to begin with, what I would call: "The testimony of Karl Silberbauer, collected by a Dutch journalist of the Haague Post and translated into German by a Jewish German journalist of the AIlgemeine Wochenzeitung d e r Juden in Deutschland (6 December 1963, page lo)." Silberbauer recounts that a t the time (4 August 1944) he had received a telephone call from a n unknown person who had revealed to him that some Jews remained hidden in a n office on Prinsengracht: "I then alerted eight Dutchmen of the Security Service (SD) and went with them to Prinsengracht. I saw that one of my Dutch companions tried to speak to a n employee but the l a t t e r made a gesture with his thumb t o w a r d t h e upstairs." Silberbauer described how he entered the place where the Jews kept themselves hidden: "The people ran in all directions and packed their suitcases. One man then came toward me and presented himself a s being Otto Frank. He'had been, he said, a reserve officer in the German Army. To - my question about the length of time that they had been in hiding, Frank had answered: 'Twenty-five months.' Seeing that I did not want to believe him, Siberbauer continued, he took the hand of a young girl who stood at his side. That must have been Anne. He placed the child against the side post of a door, which b.ore some marks in various places. I spoke again to Frank: 'What a pretty girl you have there!"' Silberbauer said then that he had only very much later made the connection between that arrest and what the newspapers said about the Frank family. After the war, his reading of the Diary surprised him very much. He especially did not understand how Anne could have known that the Jews were gassed: "We were all unaware," Siberbauer explained, "of what awaited the Jews. I especially do not understand how Anne in her

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diary could assert that the Jews were gassed." In the opinion of Silberbauer, nothing would have happoned to the Franks if they had not kept themselves hidden.
70. That exclusive interview with Silberbauer constitutes a

very faithful summary, I think, of the remarks attributed by the journalists to the person who arrested the Frank family. The testimony that I announced above (paragraph 68) confirms in general the content of the interview, with the exception that the episode of the raised thumb would be a s h e e r fabrication. Silberbauer supposedly noted nothing of the kind, for the good reason, besides, t h a t he is supposed to have made his way immediately toward the annex. He did nothing but take the corridor and the stairway, without any detour toward the offices or the stores. And it is t h e r e that the testimony in question furnishes us with an important element. One will have noticed that, in his interview, the policeman does not state precisely how he had access to the place where those in hiding kept themselves. He does not mention tho oxistonco of a "swinging cupboard" ("ein drehbares Regal"). But my witness is quite positive: Silberbauer had never encountered anything of the kind, but. . . a heavy wooden door like one finds at the entrance, for example, of a storehouse. the exact word was "ein Holzverschlag." The policeman had simply knocked at the door a n d . . . it had been opened to him. A third point of this testimony is, if possible, still more important. Karl Silberbauer said and repeated that he did not believe in the authenticity of the famous Diary, since, according to him, there had never been on the site anything that would resemble the manuscripts that Miep claimed to have found scattered about the floor one week a f t e r 4 August 1944. The policeman had the professional habit of carrying out arrests and searches since before the war. Such a pile of documents would not htivo tlsctipod his ~lotico.(Lot u s tidd horo that oight mon accompanied him and that the entire operation had been conducted slowly and correctly and then the policeman, after having entrusted the key to the premises to V.M. or to another employee, had returned to the premises on three occasions.) Silberbauer, the witness asserts, had the habit of saying that Miep had not, in reality, played a great role in that whole story (whence comes the fact that they had not even arrested her). Afterwards, Miep had tried to give herself some importance, notably with that episode of the miraculous discovery of the manuscripts. 71. The same witness declared to me, in the presence of my companion, t h a t Silberbauer in 1963-1964 h a d d r a w n up a n account, for the courts, of the arrest of the Franks and that those details might appear, in that account. A second witness certainly

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could have given me very valuable testimony on the statements of Silberbauer, but that second witness preferred to say nothing.

Chapter Seven
72. Cornparision of the Dutch and the German text: attempting to make too much of it, Mr. Frank has given himself away; he has signed a literary fraud.

73. I hove two texts in front of me. The first is in Dutch (D),
whilo tho ~ o c o n d in Gormnn (G). The publishers tell me that D is is lllo origi~lul lox[, wliilo G is tho trulislti tion of tliut original toxt. I tlo n o t have a priori any reason to challenge their word. But scientific rigor, E I Y wcll ns common sense nnd experience, teach f l i r ~ li t is nocossury to rccctivo the s t n tomunts of publishers with

c:r~ution. t hnppe~ls, s a matter of fact, that there can be error or I u deceit on their part. A book is a piece of merchandise like any other. The label c a n be deceiving about the content. As a consequence, I will set aside here the labels that a r e proposed to me or that a r e imposed upon me. I will speak neither about the "original version in Dutch," nor about the "translation into German." I will temporarily suspend all judgement. I will grant a precise name to those two books only with reservations. For the moment, I will give them a name which is, a t the same time, equal and neutral. I will therefore speak of texts.
74. I am going to describe the text D and the text G that I have before me. I am going to begin with text D, but I could, just a s wnll, I~oginwitti toxt G. I insist on this l n s t point. Tho order of successiorl t h a t 1 huve chosen h e r e ought not to imply any succession in time, nor any relationship of filiation of the father/son kind between D and G.

75. My text D is presented in this manner: Anne Frank/Het - Achterhuis/Dagboekbrieven/l4 Juni 1942-1 Augustus 1944/1977, Uitgeverij Contact, Amsterdam, Eerste druk 1947/Vijfenvijftigste druk 1977/. The author's text begins on page 22 with the photographic reproduction of a sort of dedication signed: "Anne Frank, 12 Juni 1942." On page 23 appears the first of the 169 entries which make up this "diary" to which they have given the title The Annex. The book has 273 pages. The last page of the text is page 269. I estimate the length of the text itself at about 72,500 Dutch words. I have not compared the text of that 55th edition with the text of the first edition. At the time of my investigation in Amsterdam, I received a s s u r a n c e s from Messrs. Fred Batten and, Christian Blom that no change had been made in the successive editions. Those two persons w e r e employed by the Contact

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publishing house and they were involved, along with Mr. P. De Neve (deceased), in the original acceptance of the typed manuscript that Mr. Frank had deposited with a n interpreter by the name of Mr. Kahn. It is this Mr. Kahn who was, in 1957, to serve as the companion and interpreter for Ernst Schnabel, when the latter came to see Elli in Amsterdam. 76. My text G is presented in this manner: Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank/l2 Juni 1942-1 August 1944/1977, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag/No. 77/Ungekurzte Ausgabe/43. Auflage 1293000133200/Aus dem Hollandischen u b s r t r a g e n von Anneliese Schutz/Hollandische Original-Ausgabe, "Het Achterhuis", Contact, Amsterdam. After the dedication page, the first of the entries appears on page 9. There a r e 175 entries. The last entry ends on page 201. I estimate the length of the text a t about 77,000 Gormnn words. Tho book hw1 203 pngos. This p a p e r b ~ c kW A R first published in March 1955. Fischer obtained the Lixensauega be (distribution license) from the Lambert-Schneider publishing house, in Heidelberg. 77. I call attention to a first troubling fact. Text D h a s 169 entries while text GI which is presented a s the translation of text Dl has 175 entries. 78. I call attention to a second troubling fact. I set out in search of the extra entries of text G. It is not six entries that I discover (175 minus 169 equals 6 ) , but seven entries. The explanation is the following: text G does not have the entry of "6 December 1943" from text D. 79. I point out a third troubling fact. Since the Dutch language a n d the German language a r e very close to e a c h other, the translation ought not to be appreciably longer than the text that is being translated. But, even if I disregard the number of words that make UP the seven entries in question, I am very far from reaching a difference of approximately 4,500 (G 77,000 minus D 72,500 equals 4,500). Therefore, text G even when it has some entries in common with text Dl has them under another form: in every case, under a longer form. Here is my proof, supported by figures: a) Additional entries that G has: 3 August 1943. . . . . . . . . . . . 210 words approximately ,, 7 August 1943. . . . . . . . . . . 1600 , 20 February 1943 . . . . . . . . . 270 15 April 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 21 April 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 , 25 April 1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Total 3170 words approximately
I ,

I I I,

9
9

I*

.I

9 I

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[Error on my part (R. Faurisson): The entry of 12 May 1944 (380 words) is not missing from text D. It is in text D but is dated 11 May. What is missing in text D is the entry of 11 May which, in text G, has . . . 520 words!] b) The entry that G is lacking: 6 December 1943 . . . . . . . . . 380 words approximately c) Extra words that G has, considering a n equal number of entries: 4500 minus (3170 minus 380) equals 1710 words. In reality, a s will be seen l a t e r on, this number only represents a small part of the surplus of words that G has. But, meanwhile, in order not to seem too ottached to the calculations, I am going to give some precise examples involving approximately 550 words.
80. Among the entries that D and G apparently have in common,

here a r e some letters (among many others) where G has some extra fragments, that is to say some fragments with which the Dutch reader was never acquainted: 16 October 1942 "Vater Schriftsteller". . . . . . 2 0 words 20 October 1942 "Nachdem . . . habe" -30 , 5 February 1943 "Uber. . . bedeutet" . . . . . . . . , 1 0 0 , , 1 0 August 1943 "Gestern . . . anziehen' . . . . . . I 4 0 , , 31 March 1943 "Hier . . . prima" . . . . . . . . . . . - 7 0 , " A h . . . warum? . . . . . . . . . . . -25 2 May 1944 "I nzwisclien. . . sperldiert" -90 " 3 Mny 1944 "1.Iarr. . . bosorgt" . 4 0 ,, "Langer . . . hut" -35 Total of these simple examples - 550 words

...

........

,I

... .......... ...........

,I

81. Among the entries that D and G apparently have in common, here are some entries (among many others) where G is missing some fragments, that is to say some fragments with which the German reader was never acquainted:
17 November 1942 13 June 1943 29 July 1943

"Speciale . . . overgelegd" . . . 15 words "Daar Pim . . . heeft". 30 words "Ijdelheid. . . persoontje" 20 ,, Total of these simple examples. 65 words

...... ... .

Ono remarknble fact i ~ 1that the fragments thnt are missing a r e very numerous a n d very short. For example, the letter of 2 0 August 1943 is cut by 19 words in the German text, and those 1 9 words are distributed in the following manner:
3+1+4+4+7=19.

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82. I call attention to a fourth troubling fact. T h a t f a c t is independent of the quantities that a r e extra or lacking. This fact is that some fragments of entries move somehow from one letter to the other, from text D to text G. For example, the entire next-to-the-last paragraph of letter D of Donderdag, 27 April 1944 is found in the last paragraph of letter G of Dienstag, 25 April 1944. On the 7th of J a n u a r y 1944, the l a s t p a r a g r a p h of D becomes, in G, the sixth paragraph before the end. On 27 April 1944, the next-to-the-last paragraph of D becomes, in G, the last paragraph of the entry of 25 April 1944. 83. I call attention to a fifth troubling fact. It is not a question, this time, of additions, of subtractions, of transferrals, but of alterations which a r e the sign of inconsistencies. I mean to say this: suppose that I leave aside all the features by which D and G differ so obviously from one another, and suppose that I turn now toward what I would call "the remainder" (a "remainder" which, according to the publishers, ought to make u p "the common stock," "the identical part"), I am surprised to find out that, from one end to the other of these two books, except with the rarest exceptions, this "remainder" is very far from being identical. As is going to be seen by the examples that follow, these inconsistencies cannot be attributed to a clumsy or whimsical translation. The same entry of 10 March 1943 gives, for D, "Bij kaarslicht" ("by candlelight") and, for G, "Bei Tage" ("By daylight"); "een nacht" ("one night") for "Eines Tages" ("one day"); "verdwenen de dieven" ("the robbers disappeared") for "schwieg der Larm" ("the noise became quiet"). On 13 January 1943, Anne said that she rejoiced a t the prospect of buying a f t e r the w a r some "nieuwe kleren en schoenen" ("some new clothes and shoes"); that is in text D, because in text G she speaks of "neue Kleider und Bucher" (of "new clothes and books"). On 18 May 1943, Mrs. Van Daan is "als door Mouschi gebeten" ("as if bitten by Mouschi [the cat]);t h n t is in text D, becausu in text G 8he is "wio von einer Tarnntel gestochen" ("ns if stung by a tcirtintula"). Dopending on whether one consults D or G , a man is a "fascist" or a "Riese" ("giant") (20 October 1942). Some "red beans and some white beans" ("bruine e n witte bonen") become "white beans" ("weisse Bohnen") (12 March 1943). Some sandals for 6.5 florins become some sandals wirhout indication of price (ibidem), while "five hostages" ("een stuk of 5 gijzelaars") h a s become ' ' a certain number of these hostages" ("eine Anzahl dieser Geilseln"), and that in tho same entry of 9 October 1942 where "the Germans" ("Duitsers") a r e no more t h a n "these Germans" ("diese Deutschen") who are very specifically the Nazis (see above, paragraph 54). On 1 7 November 1942, Dussel meets the Franks and the Van Daans in their hiding-place. Text D says that

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"Miep helped him to take off his overcoat" ("Miep liet hem zifn jas uitdoen"); learning that the Franks a r e there, "he nearly fainted from surprise" and, says Anne, he remained "silent" "as if he wanted first a little time, a moment, to read the truth on our sprakeloos . . faces" ("vie1 hij haast flauw van verbazing alsof hij eerst even goed de waarheid van onze gezichten wilde lezen"); but text G says of Dussel that he "had to take off his overcoat" and describes his astonishment in this way: "he could not understand. . . he was not able to believe his eyes" ("Er musste den Mantel ausziehen . . konnte er es nicht fassen . und wollte scinen Augen nicht trauen"). A person who suffered from an eye problem and who "bathed it with camomile tea" ("hette het . . . mat kamillen-the") becomes a person who "made himself some compresses" ("machte U~nschlage")(10 December 1942). Whore "Papa" olone is waiting ("Pim verwocht"), it is "we" all who a r e waiting ("Wir erwarten") (27 February 1943). Where the two cats receive their names of Moffi and Tommi, according to whether they a p p e a r "boche" ("German") or "angliche" ("E~lgliuh"),"just a s in politics" ("Net als in de politiek"), text G says that they were named "according to their spiritual dispositions" ("Ihren Anlogen gemass") (12 March 1943). On 26 March 1943, some people who "were in an endless foar" ("schrockton immor wieder a u f ' ) . "a pioce of flannel" flanel") becomes a "mattress cover" ("Matratzen("sen 1 ~ p schoner") (1 May 1943). "To go on strike" ("Staken") "in many areas" ("in viele gebieden") becomes: "sabotage is committed on all sides" ("an allen Ecken und Enden sabotiert wird") (ibidem). A "folding bed" ("harmonicabed") is encountered a s a "loungechair" ("Liegestuhl") (21 August 1942). The following sentence: "The gunfire no longer did anything to us, our fear had gone away" ("Het kanonvuur deerde ons niet meer, onze angst was weggevaad") becomes: "and the situation, for today, was saved" ("und die Situation war fur heute gerettet") (18 May 1943).

...

..

84. I had noted these few examples in inconsistencies in the -'course of a simple sample which did not go beyond the 54th entry of text D (18 May 1943). I decided then to initiate a much more rigorous sample, bearing on the eleven entries going from 19 July to 29 September 1943 (entries 60 to 73). To the inconsistencies, I decided to add the additions and the subtractions. The result was such that the simple enumeration of the differences noted would require several typewritten pages. I am not able to do that here. I will content myself with only a few examples here, avoiding the most striking ones since, unfortunately, the most striking are also the longest ones to cite.

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.Entry of 19 July 1943 "parents killed" ("dode ouders") becomes "parents" ("Eltern"); .Entry of 23 July 1943: G has, in addition, a t least 49 words plus 3 words; .Entry of 26 July 1943: G has, in addition, four plus four words and is lacking two words: "over Italie"; .Entry of 29 July 1943: G h a s twenty words missing a n d "twenty years" ("twintig jaar") becomes "twenty-five years" ("25 Jahren"); @Entryof 3 August 1943: this letter of 210 words in text G is completely missing in text D; .Entry of 4 August 1943: D gives "couch" and G "loungechair." In D a flea "floats" ("drijft") in the wash water, "only in warm months or weeks" ("allen in de hete maanden of weeken"), while for G that flea must "lose his life" ("sein Leben lassen") there, without any other detail concerning weather. D gives: "to use some cotton [soaked] in hydrogen peroxide (that serves to bleach her black moustache fuzz)" ("waterstofwatjes hanteren [dient om zwarte snorharen te bleken]"), while G gives simply: "and other little toiletry secrets . .") ("und andere kleine Tolettengeheimniss . ."). The comparison of "like a brook falling from a mountain" ("als een beekje van een berg") becomes "like a brook on the boulders" ("wie ein Bachlein uber die Kiessel"). Some "irregular French verbs": this is what Anne thinks of in text D ("aan Franse onregelmatige wekworden"), but, in text G, this can only be about irregular Dutch verbs, it seems, since she says that she "dreams" ("traume ich") of "irregular verbs" ("von unregelmassigen Verben"). Text G contents itself with: "Rrrrrring, upstairs [sounds the Van Daans'] alarm" ( " K r r r r r , oben d e r Wecker"), while D gives: "Rrrring the little alarm [sounds], which a t each hour of the day (when it is wanted or sometimes also without being wanted) can raise its little voice." ("Trrr het wekkertje, dat op elk uur van de dag [als men e r naar vraagt of soma ook sonder dat] zijn stemmetje kan verheffen");

...

...

.Entry of 5 August 1943: all of it is a description of the usual meal, from 1:15 pm to 1:45 pm, and of the things that follow, a n d t h e r e a r e important differences; besides, w h a t is announced, by D, a s "The great share-out" is announced by

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G as "Small lunch -' ("De grote uitdelingm/"Kleiner Lunch") I underlino the adjectives; the possible, but not certain, irony of D has disappeared in G. Of the three "couches" in D, there only remains one "couch" in G; @Entry of 7 August 1943: this letter constitutes quite a n interesting puzzle. A very long letter, it begins, in text G, with nine lines introducing a story of 74 lines entitled Kaatje as well as another story of 99 lines entitled Katrientje. This entry is completely absent from D. The Dutch, for their part, know of these stories only by way of a separate book entitled Stories, in which there a p p e a r , besides, some other "unedited stories" of Anne Frank: @Entryof 9 August 1943: among many other curious things tliere uro "sumo Iiorn-rinimod glasses" ("een lioornen bril") which become "some dark horn-rimmed glasses" ("eine dunkle Hornbrille") in text G; .Entry of 10 August 1943: the "war material" of D becomes the "guns" ("Kanonen") of G. The sentence concerning the bell in the Westertoren is entirely different. And, especially, G has an episode of 140 words which does not appear in D. Anne, who has received some new shoes, tells there about a series of misadventures that had happened to her on that same day: she had pricked her right thumb with a large needle; she had bumped her head against the door of the cupboard; because of the noise caused, she received a "scolding" ("Ruffel"); she was not able to soothe h e r forehead since it was necessary not to turn on the water; she had a large bruise over her right eye; she had stubbed her toe on the vacuum cleaner; her foot became infected, it is all swollen. Result: Anne cannot put on her pretty new shoes. (You will have noticed h e r e the presence of a vacuum cleaner in a place where silecce would have had to be necessary constantly; @Entryof 18 August 1943: among nine differences, we see some "beans" ("bonen") turn into green peas ("Erbsen"); .Entry of 20 August 1943: I will mention only one example of a difference; it concerns the bread; the narrative is appreciably different and, besides, for text D, this bread is located in two successive locations: a t first the steel cupboard of the office looking out on the street (in the front house), then, the kitchen cupboard of the annex ("stalen kast", "voorkantoor"/"Keukenkast"), while G only mentions the first

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location, without being precise about the second; the unfortunate thing is that the first location mentioned by D is a simple cupboard located in the office looking out o n . the courtyard: the office of Kraler, ~ n not that of Koophuis d ("the b r e a d , which is put in Kraler's room for us every day")! (About the respectivo officos of Krulor a n d of Koophuis, s e e the e n t r y of 9 July 1942.) T h e r e is here a serious material contradiction between the two texts, with changes of words, of sentences, etc.;

..

.Entry of 23 August 1943: among other curious things, "to read or to study" ("lesen of leren") becomes "to read or to write" ("lesen oder schreiben"), "Dickens and the dictionary" ("Dickons or1 hot woordonbook") buc:orno~ orily "Dickens", some "bolsters" ("peluwen") turn into "eidordown pillows" ("Plumeaus") (in Dutch, "eider-down pillows" would be said a s "eiderdons" or "dekbed"); .Entry of 10 September 1943: among five differences, I notice that the broadcast, so eagerly ownitod onch clay, fromRac1ioOranje (the Voice of Holland from overseas) begins a t 8:15 pm for D and at 8:00pm for G; .Entry of 1 6 September 1943: "ten valerianes" ("tien Valeriaantjes") become "ten of the small white pills" ("zohn von den kleinen weissen Pillen"). "A long f a c e a n d a drooping mouth" ("een uitgestreken gezicht en neerhangende mond") became "a tight-lipped mouth with worry lines" ("einen zusammengekniffenen Mund und Sorgenfnlten"). The winter compared to a fearful obstacle, a "biting" winter, which is there like a "heavy block of stone" ("het grote rotsblok, dat winter heet"), is no more than a simple winter ("dem Winter"). An "overcoat" (" jas") becomes "hat and cane" ("Hut and Stock"). A sentence of 24 words, claiming to describe a picturesque s c e n e , finds itself reduced to five German words. On the other hand, six Dutch words become 1 3 German words with a very different meaning; .Entry of 29 September 1943: "a grumbling father" ("een mopperenden vader") becomes "the father who is not in agreement with her choice" ("den Vater, der nicht mit ihrer Wahl einverstanden ist"). "Energetically" ("energiek") becomes "ganz kalt und ruhig" ("in a quite cold and quiet manner"), etc.
85. I think that it is useless to pursue such a n enumeration. It is

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not exaggerated to say that the first entry of the collection gives us, in a way, the tone of the whole. In that short letter, the Dutch lonrn thnt, for hor birthday. Anne received "a little plant" ("een plantje"). ?'he Germans havo the privilege of learning thnt that plnnt w a s "R [:nctus" ("eine Kaktee"). In return. the Dutch know thrtt Annn roanivnd "two pnnny branches." while the Germans must content themselves with knowing that there were "some peony brnnr:hosV ("oinigo Z w o i ~ o Pfingstroson"). Tho Dutch have the right to the following sentence: "such were, that morning, the children of Florn who sat on my table" ("dot waren die ochtend (lo ki~ltloronvcln Flnrn dio 01) mijn tnfol stondon"]. In the Germnn text, the table has disappeared, a s well a s "the children of Flora" (a curious, hackneyed phraso from the pen of n child of thirteen: one would have expected i t rather from a n adult seeking Inboriously and artlessly to "decorate" his style). The Gernians simply Iinve the right to: "These wero tho first flowers offered by wny of grr!ntings" ("Dns waren die ersten Blumengrusse"). The Dutch Icrlrn thnt An~icj, t l i ~ dtiy. will offor lo hor toochers nlid to lior on t r:lr~ssrnntes"sorno butter cnkos" ("botorkookjes"). Tho Germans 1111vntho riglit to sorno "anndy" ("Bonbons"). The "chocolnte." prc!sant for t I i ( 3 l)utc:li, will tlisrippou~.Tur lllu C;ur~iirl~i.q. U ~ O M n ~ ~ r p r i s irn ~ : thni Annn will bo ~ b l e buy for herself with i Imok to t11u money t l i r ~ tllris just bee11given to hor on that Sunday 14 Juno 1942. becomes. in the Germun text, a book that she has alroady 11o11ght o r horsolf ("zodnt ik mo . . . k a n kopen"/"habe i c h f mir . . . gekauft").
06. On tho other hand, tho lnst entry of the collection is identical in the two texts. 'I'hat confirms for us, if there woro need for It, that the Germnn translator-if one must speak about "translation"-was quite capable of respecting the Dutch text. But it is too evident now that one cannot speak of translation, nor even of "adaptation." Is it to translate. is it to "adapt" to put day for night (10 March 1943)? books for shoes (13 January 1943)? candy for bullor. cukcs (14 J U I I O 1942)7 giul~lsfor fuscisl (20 Octobor 1942)? Is "candles" translated by "day" a n d "cats" by "tarantula"? "to float" by "to die"? "large" by "small" (4 August 1943)? Only magicians c a n change a n overcoat into a hat a n d a c n n e . W i t h M r s . Anneliese S c h u t z a n d M r . F r a n k , t h e t a b l e disappears (14 June 1942) a n d the stairway steals away (the Dutch e n t r y of 1 6 September 1943 mentions a very p e c u l i a r stnirway, which would havo lod directly to the persons in hiding: "[lie direct n a a r boven leidt"). The bread storage place changes its l o c n t i n ~ l .W h n t is holiincl is o n c o u n t e r e d ~ g n i n f r o n t in (Kraler's office). numbers a p p e a r a n d disappear. Hours change. Faces change. Events multiply or disappear. Beings a s well a s things a r e subject to eclipses a n d to sudden changes. Anne, one

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could say, emerges from her tomb in order to come to lengthen one of h e r n a r r a t i v e s or to shorten i t ; sometimos she writos another or even reduces it to nothingness. 87. Ten years after her death, Anne's text continues to change. In 1955, the Fischer publishing house publishes her Diaryas a pocket-book under a "discreetly" reworked form. The reader could especially compare the following entries: 09 July 1942: "Hineingekommen . . gemalt war" (25 words] gemalt w a r " (41 words). The replaced by: " N e b e n . appearance of a door!

..

011 July 1042: " t ~ n n ~ oroplacod hy "busorgt"; " 021 September 1042: "gorugt" replacod by "goscholton" r ~ n d "drei Westen" changing itself into "drei Wolljacken";
0 2 7 September 1942: "mit Margot bin ich nicht mehr so

intim" becomes: "mit Margot verstehe mich nicht sehr gut"; @28 September 1942: "besturzt" replaced by "erschuttert"; 07 November 1942: "ohne den Hergang zu kennen" becomes: "ohne zu wissen, worum es ging" and "Er ist mein Ideal" becomes: "Er ist nloin leuchtendos Vorbild". T h a t lust change of the text is not lucking in flavor, if one knows that it is n q l ~ o s t i o nhoro o f an no'^ fr~thor. Mr. Prr~nki~ no longor an "ideal" for his daughter, but "a shining model"! -Another chnnfio: " ~ ~ n d A o r ~ ~ ~ o I ~ ~ o c o r i i " I~I:~ ( rim ~(:lllimmd n ~ tR " oI ~ sten ist";
07 August 1943: I pointed out above (see p a r ~ g r a p h 84) this very long lottor wliicli contr~instwo storios. I supposo t h n t tllesu stories existod in tho munuscript which had been

reserved for them and that they had been wrongly inserted into the Diary. In that case, one asks oneself who wrote the nine lines of introduction, where Anne asks her correspondent especially if she believes that her stories a r e going to please children. 88. These last c h ~ n g e s were made from one German text to another German text. They could therefore not have the excuse of a clumsy or whimsical translation. They prove that the Diary's author-the term that I ordinarily use for the person responsible for the text that I am reading-was still alive in 1955. In the same way, in discovering the German text of 1950 (Lambert-Schneider

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edition), I discovered that the author of the Diary (an especially prolific author) was still alive in 1950. That author could not have been Anne Frank, who, a s we know, died in 1945, 89. In my comparisons of the texts, I have followed the official chronological order. I have shown how the text printed in Dutch (1947) clashed with the first printed German text (1950),which, in its turn, underwent some strange metamorphosis in the second printed German text (1955). But. scientifically speaking, nothing proves that the chronological order of publication reflects the chronologicnl ordor of coniposition. For example, tllero could liave boon some manuscripts in German which preceded the p u t t i n n l o ~ o l l ~ o fr t l ~ o Ilul(:l~I I I ( I I I I I H C ~ ~ ~ ~ B . It (:auld bo flint tho mod01 or tlio " f i r ~ t oclition" outlinn hnd I~oen writton in Gormnn. I I ( : o I I I ( I 110 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I ~ I ( I I ~ W J I ~ ( I111111 111o(lt11or tll41t ~ ~ ~ l t l aftor , H i~lo l~rivir~g vc~~i gi I)irtll to (1 toxt trnri~lntocl irito Dutch, hnd nlso given I~irtlito rin ontiroly rowritton Gormnn text. I t could be that, for sovorul yours, sumo vory different texts had thus lived in ~ymbiosis. Tllnt phonomonon is called the phenomenon of contamination. It is nevertheless clear that Mr. Frank cannot invoke that argument about tho contarnination of the texts, since there exists, according to him, one single text: that of the Dutch manuscripts. For certain periods of the twenty-five months at the Prinsengracht, it is possible that the different manuscripts of the Diary offer us some variant readings; still, those variant readings could not provide u s with the innumerable absurdities a n d inconsistencies that we havo seen. For other periods, like that of an entire year (from 6 December 1942 to 21 December 1943), when, nccording to Mr, Frank's own tldnlission, we have at our disposal only one version, thero ought not to exist the slightest vrl riflrit rocltlillg, not the ~ l i g l l t to clisugroernent botweun toxt D ~ and text G. It is for that reason that I chose from that period the largest number of my examples of inconsistencies.

90. 1 have noticed, in my semplings, neither more nor fewer inconsistencies for that period than for the other periods. In a uniform way, text D presents us a n Anne Frank who has, if not the traits, a t least fits the stereotype of the young adolescent, while text G offers us the stereotype of the adolescent already near, in certain respects, to being a mature woman. There are, in text G, some passages t h a t a r e incompatible with the corresponding passages of text D, and even formally incompatible with the entire substance of all of text D, There we reach the height of the intolerable in the manipulation of texts. Here is, for example, the letter of 5 January 1944. Anne confesses that before her time in hiding, t h a t is to say, before the a g e of thirteen, she h a d happened, while spending the night a t the home of a girlfriend, to

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feel the need to kiss her: " . . I had a strong desire to kiss her, and I did do so. . ." ("een sterke behoefte had h a a r te zoenen en dat ik dat ook gedaan her"). In text G there appears a girl of thirteen who is appreciably more knowing. Here, Anne asked her comrade for a night if, a s a token of their friendship, they could feel each others breasts. But the comrade had refused. And Anne, who appears to have practice in the matter, adds: "I still found it pleasant to kiss her and I did it" ("fragte ich sie, ob wir als Beweis unserer Freundschaft uns gegenseitig die Bruste befuhlen wollten, a b e r s i e w e i g e r t e sich. Ich f a n d es-immer schon, sie zu kussen, und habe e s auch getan"). On the sexual feelings of Anne, I recommend likewiso tlie comparative reading of texts D and G for 7 January 1944.

It is astonishing that the Dutch reader had been deprived of so many rovolntions rosorvotl Ily Mr. Frc~llkrrild Annolioso Scliutx f o r . . Anne's grondmothor, who was s o "aged" (soo, above, pnrngrnpli 54). Wllnt o f tho rovoln tionu clg~tin ioxt C; on musicul in tastes or on musical knowledge that the Dutch did not have the right to know (for whnt roctsori, rlftrtr nll?)! 'I'oxt G of tllo loitor of 9 June 1944 resorvos for us the solo rights to n dissertt~tion 200 of words on the life of Liuzt (iruatod, by [I vary feminist Anne, a s a "petticoat chaser"/"schurzenjager"), of Beethoven, Wagner, Chopin, Rossini, Mendolsolin. Many otlior numes a r o mentioned: Hector Berlioz, Victory Hugo, Honore do Balzac . . . The entry of 20 February 1944 (220 words) is absent from text D. It contains however some elements of very great importance from mnny points of view. Dussel has tho hctbit of' whistling "das ViolinKonzort von Beethoven"; tlio us0 of timo on Sundnys is rovenled to us; it must be recognized that ono poirit, a t least, about that use of time is more than troubling: Mr. Frank in overalls, on his knees, beating the carpet with such enthusiasm that the entire room is filled with clouds of dust ("Vater liegt im Overall auf den Knien und i ~ u r s t o don Teppich mit s o l ~ l ~ oElun, d u s s d u s gonzo t r~l Zimmer in Staubwoken gehullt ist"). In addition to the noise that such a n operation would cause in a place where even a t night, when the neighbors a r e not there, it is necessary not to cough, it is obvious that the scene is described by someone who could not have seen it: a carpet is never beaten in that way on the floor of a room, in the very place whore it became dusty. In the entry of 3 November 1943, a fragment of 1 2 0 words, which is missing in text D, reveals to us another case of the carpet being brushed each evening by Anne in the "ofenluft" (the air from the stove), and t h a t b e c a u s e t h e v a c u u m c l e a n e r ( " d e r S t a u b s a u g e r " ) "ist kaputt' (that famous vacuum cleaner which, according to Mr. F r a n k , could not h a v e existed; s e e a b o v e , p a r a g r a p h 3 7 ) . Concerning Anne's knowledge or ideas on the subject of historical

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TIlE JOURNAL OF I IISTORICAL REVIEW

or political events, one will make some discoveries in the entries of 6 June, 13 June and 27 June 1944. On Peter's character one will find some revelations in the entry of 11 May 1944, That entry of 400 words does not exist in text D. But nevertheless, in text Dl we find a letter a t that date of 11 May; however, the corresponding text is dated, in text G, on 1 2 May! Peter defies his mother while calling her "the old lady" ("Komm mit, Alte!"). Nothing like the Peter of text D!
91. It would be interesting to subject each of the principal

characters of text D and of text G to analysis by psychologists or psychiatrists. Anne, in perticulnr, would appear under some profou~ldly contradictory character traits. But this is purely hypothetical. I think that in fact those analysts would see that Anne h a s no more r e a l consistency t h a n a total invention of unrelated facets. The few so-called descriptions of Anne that I have been able to find have especially convinced me that their authors have read the Diary very superficially. It is true that the dullness of their descriptions could be explained by the dullness of tho ~ubiect dascribod. 0110 sturootypu calls for another, a s one lie calls for another.
92. The language and the style of text D strive to be characteristic of a young adolescent, innocent and awkward. The language and the style of text G strive to be characteristic of an adolescent already closs, i11 certain respects, to being a woman. That is evident simply from the parts of the texts that I have mentionedparts that I did not choose, howevor, with a view to studying the language and the style of the two Anne Franks.

93. Mr. Frank has indulged in some story-telling. That is easily established when one sees how he has transformed the printed German text of 1950 (Lambert-Schneider)in order to make from it the text printed by Fischer (1955). It was on that occasion, in - pc~rtic~llnr.r l t Iiu nic~do t l u u g h t o r A11110 say tllut 11or father is th l~is (1950 version); then, after thinking it over, that he is her "ideal" her "shining model" (1955 version). This inclination for storytelling did not come to Mr. Frank all at once. He had, we a r e told b y onb of Anna's forrrier tt~nchors, tho hnr~rllossidiosyrlcrasy of cornposing stories and poems with his daughter ("Sometimes she told IIIU stories arid poems which slie had made up together with A h e r . . . " Anne Frank: - Portrait in Courage, page 41). That hn pponod nbou t 1940. All110 wos olovo11 years old and her father was 51. In 1942. Mr. Frnnk. n formor banker in Frankfurt and a former mercliant and businessman in Amsterdam, took a forced retirement at the age of 53. I do not think that his inclination for writing had disappeared then during his long days of inactivity.

Anne Frank

197

In any case, the Diary hardly gives us any information about what Mr. Frank did with his days. But what does i t matter! Mr. Frank is a story-teller who has given himself away. The drama of story-tellers is that they add more to their stories. The never stop retouching, reworking, cutting out, correcting. By doing this they end up incurring the distrust ~f certain people. And it is child's play for those people to prove the storytelling. It is very easy to confound Mr. Frank. It is sufficient to have a t hand text D and one of the two different versions of text G. It is enough to remind him that he had declared in writing to the Dutch: "I guarantee to you that here, on such a n d such a date, Anne wrote: day or shoes or butter cakes or fascist or large," while to the Germans he has gone on to declare in writing regarding the same places and the same dates: "I guarantee to you that Anne wrote: night or books or candy or giant or small." If Mr. Frank told the truth in the first case, he told u story in the second case. And vice-verea. Me has told a story either here, or there. Or again-and this is the most probable-he has made u p the story here and there. In any case, one could never claim that Mr. Frank, in this affair of the Diary, is a man who has told the truth, the whole truth, und nothing but the truth.
94. The Diary can not be in any way authentic. Consultation with allegedly authentic manuscripts is unnecessary. A s a matter of fact, no manuscript in the world could certify that Anne Frank succeedod in tho miraculous feat of writing two words a t tho same time and-what is more-two words with incompatible meanings, and-even more-two complete texts a t the same time, which a r e most of t h e time totally c o n t r a d i c t o r y . It is well understood that overy printed text cun have a criticul apparatus with its variant readings, its explanatory notes, its indications of the existence of possible interpolations, etc. But I have already s a i d ( s e e above, p a r a g r a p h 88) t h a t w h e r e one h a s a t one's disposal only one manuscript, there a r e no longor any possiblo v a r i a n t r e a d i n g s ( b a r r i n g specific c a s e s : difficulties in deciphering 11 word, errors in preceding editions, etc.). And when one has a t one's disposal several manuscripts (two, a t the most, for c e r t a i n periods of t h e Diary; p e r h a p s t h r o e in some very limited cases), it is sufficient to eliminate those periods and those cases in order to confine oneself strictly to the periods and to the cases where it is necessary to be contented with a single manuscript (here, the period from 6 December 1942 to 21 December 1943).

95. To the hypothesis, henceforth inconceivable, according to which there would exist a n authentic manuscript, I say that none of the printed texts c a n claim to reproduce the text of the manuscript. The following table establishes, in fact, that the Fischer

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T H E JOURNAL OF HlSTORlCAL REVIEW

edition of 1955 comes in the eight position in the order of succession of the varying forms of the Diary. To understand this table, refer especially to paragraphs 52. and 53.

("Official")Chronological Table of Successive Forms of the Text of the Diary

I, The Manuscript of Anne Frank; 11. Copy by Otto Frank, then by Otto Frank and Isa Cauvern; 111. New Version of the Copy by Otto Frank a n d Isa Cauvern; IV. New-New Version of the Copy by Albert Cauvern; V. New-New-New Version by Otto Frank; VI. New-New-New-New Version by Otto Frank and the "Censors"; VII. Contact Edition (1947); VIII. Lnmbort Schnoidor Edition (1950),radically different from the preceding one, and even incompotiblo with it: IX. Fischer Edition (1955) taking up again the preceding one in a "discreetly" (?) reworked and retouched form. One could, of course, claim that (V.) was perhaps only a very faithful copy of (IV.). The same for (VII.) in relation to (VI.). That would be to suppose that Mr. Frank, who reworked this text continually, had suddenly refrained from doing it a t the moment of recopying text (IV.) without any witness, and at the moment of the probable correction of the priqter's proofs for (VII.). Personally, I maintain these nine stages s a minimum to which it is necessary indeed to add one, two o three "copies" for text (VIII.)

96. The only interest in a study of the manuscripts which are, allegedly, by Anne Frank would be to bring to light some elements still more crushing for Mr. Frank: for example, some letters or fragments of letters which have never been published (the reasons for non-publication should be inquired into closely, without trusting in the reasons given by Mr. Frank, which always have a very suspicious sentimental coloring); for example also, some very changeable names for Anne's "correspondents" (the idea of showing her always addressing herself to the same "dear Kitty" seems to be a belated idea), etc.
97. The reasoning which would consist of claiming that in the Diary there would exist nevertheless a basis of truth would be a

Anne Frank

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reasoning without value. First, because it would be necessary to know that truth or to be able to distinguish it in the jumble of the obvious fictions; the lie is, most often, only the a r t of adapting the t r u t h . Then, s i n c e a w o r k of t h e mind ( a s , for example, t h e editing of a "diary") is not defined by a basis, but by a unity of forms: the forms of a written expression, the forms which a n individual has given to it once and for all, for bettor or for worse.
98. The rensoning which would consist of saying that thoro have only been some hundreds of changes between such- and such form of the Diary is fallacious. The word "changes" is too vague. It allows, according to the taste of each person, all sorts of condemnations or, especially, all sorts of excuses. Furthermore, a change can involve, a s we have seen, a single word or a text of 1600 words!

99. For my part, I have called attention to several hundreds of c h a n g e s , only b e t w e e n t h e Dutch t e x t a n d e i t h e r of t h e two texts-which differ from each other-which have been published in Germany. I c a l l t h o s e c h a n g e s : a d d i t i o n s , s u b t r a c t i o n s , transferences and alterations (by substitutions of ono word for another, of one group of words of another-these words and these groups of words being incompatible with each other, even if indeed, by the rarest exception, the meaning could be maintained). The whole of these changes must affect approximately ~5,000~ words of the Fischer text which itsolf must bo 77,000 words (that is, in any case, tlie number which I take for u base). 100. The French translation of Het Achterhuis can be called a "translation" in spite of the absence of one of the 169 ontries of tlie Dutch Contact edition and notwithstanding indeed some weaknesses and also some bizarre things which lead one to think that there still could be some troublesome discoveries to be made. (Journal/de Anne Frank Het Achterhuis, translated from the Dutch by T, Caren a n d Suzanne Lombard, Calmann-Levy, 1950, p r i n t e d 5 J a n u a r y 1974, 320 pages.) T h e L a m b e r t S c h n e i d e r edition cannot in any event, be presented a s a translation. As to the Fischer edition, it cannot call itself a reproduction of the Lamber Schneider edition, nor a translation of Het Achterhuis.
101. That impressive ensemble of additions, subtractions,

transferences, alterations; those fictions of Mr. Frank; those dishonesties of the editors; those interventions of outsiders,
1. That estimate from 4978 does not have great meaning. The manipulations are endemic and to calculate the number of them is illusory. (note for the present French edition of 1980.)

TI IE JOURNAL OF HISTORlCAL REVIEW

friends of Mr. Frank, the existence of two such different books presented a s one and the same Diary of Anne Frank--all these reveal a work which cannot, in any way, retain the prestige attached to a n authentic testimony. The inconsistencies of the various texts a r e of all kinds. They concern the language and the style, the length a n d the form of the pieces t h a t make u p the D i a r y , the number a n d the kind of anecdotes reported, the description of the premises, the mention of material realities, the dialogues, the ideas exchanged, the tastes expressed; they concern the very personalities of the principal characters, to begin with the personality of Anne Frank, a personality which gives the impression of living in a world of pure fiction.
1 0 2 . Wliile offering himself a s personal g u a r a n t o r of the authenticity of this work, which is only fiction, Mr. Frank, who has b e ~ i d e s obviously intorvonod a t all stages of the genesis of the book, has signed what it is appropriate to call a literary fraud. The Diur-y of Anne Frnnk is to bo placed on the already crowded shelf of false memoirs. Our post-war period has been fertile in works or writings of this kind. Among those false, apocryphal or suspicious works (either entirely, or by insertions of foreign elements) one can mention: the various "testimonies" of Rudolf Hoss, Kurt Gerstein, Miklos Nyiszli, Emmanuel Ringelblum, the memoirs of Eva Braun, Adolf Eichmann, Waltor Schellenbsrg, but also the document entitled: "Prayer of John XXIII for the Jews." One must mention especially tlie ftllso diaries fabricated by the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and denounced by the French historian Michel Borwicz, of Polish Jewish origin; among those diaries could appear that of one Therese Heschelos, age thirte~n.~

103. I would take c a r e not to forget t h a t one of the most celebrated forgeries w a s f a b r i c a t e d against the Jews: t h e Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I ask that people not misunders t a n d the direction t h a t I have given to my r e s e a r c h on the authenticity of the Diary of Anne Frank. Even if my personal conviction is that the work comes from Mr. Frank; even if I think that a t the rate of two letters per day, three months would have been enough for him to prepare the first version of his clumsy fiction; even if I think that he did not believe that his work would know such an immense success (which, a t the same time, would risk causing its terrible faults to become evident); even if I think that one can then find a thousand extenuating circumstances for
2. Michel Borowicz, Revue d'histoire de la Deuxierne Guerre mondiale, , January 1962, page 93,

Anne Frank

201

him; even if I have the conviction that he did not at all seek to make up a vast hoax, but that he found himself dragged along by circumstances to guarantee all the extraordinarily brilliant results of a humble and banal undertaking-in spite of all that, the truth obliges me to say that the Diary of Anne Frank is only a simple literary fraud.

French Editor's Postscript (1980)

The report t h a t you have just r e a d w a s not destined for publication. In the mind of Professor Faurisson, it only constituted one piece, among others, of a work that he intended to devote to the Diary of Anne Frank. We publish it today-in spite of the reticence of its author who, for his part, would have hoped for a more extended publication including some elements which a r e still being worked onbecause the French press and the foreign press have created an uproar about tho professor's opinion on the Diary of Anne Frank. The public itself may feel the need to judge these pieces. We have thus wished to put the essential p a r t of these pieces a t its disposal. You can thus make for yourself your own judgements on Faurisson's methods of work and on the results to which they had led him by August of 1978. This report, in the exact form* [see next page) under which we publish it, already has a n official existence. It was in August of 1978 that it was sent, in its German version, to the lawyer Jurgen Rieger to be presented a s evidence a t a court in Hamburg. Mr. Rieger was and still remains today the defender of Ernst Romer, subjected to a trial for having publicly expressed his doubts on the authenticity of the Diary. The court, after having heard the parties and having begun to examine the basis of the litigation, decided, to everyone's surprise, to adjourn any new session sine die. According to the usual scenario, from the time the trial opened the press dictated to the court the conduct to follow. The Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt went into the front lines of the battle and in a long open letter vigorously took a position in favor of Mr. Frank. For this politcal party, the cause was judged in advance, and the authenticity of the Diary had been proved a long time ago. The court in question, in spite of the efforts of Mr. Rieger to start the trial once more, has never rendered its judgement. The German press deplored the fact that Mr. Otto Frank dill had to wait for "justice to be done." Still, this refusal to judge constitutes progress. In a similar

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c a s e , Professor Faurisson h a d d r a w n u p a five page report summarizing his research and his conclusions about the "gas chambers." That statement was signed and the signature was notarized. The professor had gone so far a s to cite the text of the Journal officiel of the F r o n c h Republic ostnblishing t h a t R Icgcllizotion o f ' s i g ~ l i l t u r ei l l France wes v ~ l i d West Germany. A in w n ~ t o offorl: in Ilio ~ ( I I I S O I I H I ) I ' O . Y O I ~ ~ OfC ~ tilt) ~01idenlnati011. of or tile C o u r t docrced that "Fourisso~i"was only a pseudonym. For the s a m e r e a s o n i t refused tho testimony of t h o Amoricnn l ) r O f ( l ~ ~ O r ' ~ ~ It. ~ 1 '~ ~ Z . ~ l 1 UL Justice is ocluril f o r nil, subject to t h o oxceptio diabolica.

*With one exception. The original report contained o n Appendix #3 which c o n ~ i s t o d n ~tnloniontfrom n Froncli university'profossor who of is liigl~lyrogarded for his competence in the matter of textual criticism. t ~ l Tho l n ~ phrnuo of 11iou t ~ i t o m r ~i~ i Ilio rollowillg: "It is cortairi that !lie custonis ol'litcrary cornmunic~tion~ u t h o r i z e Mr. Frnnk, or Rnyone else. lo r:onstrucl I I H rilr~iiy fi(:tio~iril cliurt~cturs f Allno F r n ~ i k s he w a n t s to. o a t ~ tuon contli tion I l l t i t 110 do09 no1 protolid thn t thoso fictionnl b o i n g ~ nro itlorilir:r~l will1 1110 r:l~r~i.r~c:lor his ilri~l~litor." of 'I'lint c t r ~ u m e n tfrom r~utliority.I l i r ~ ti ~ tho ~lotoniont ail orninent academic on the quality of . of the work c a r r i e d out. is itself presentable to a court. but i t is not justified in II pul~lic dol~rtlo. I~urlliorn~oro, otlier professors w e r e preparing to two y reach the sanle conclusions, whon s ~ ~ d d e n lthe "Fnl~riuson Affnir" I ~ r r ~ k o i i i Ilio I I ~ O H H111 N I I V U I I I01 ~ ~ 'l'liosu professors prudently 0111 I ) l97U. decided to abstclin. As n consequencn. w o hnve docidod not to name r~riyor~o. 'I'IIII clol~r~lo lil~vi~ig bo(:oriio 1)ul1Iic, i t beliooves e a c h one to dotormine if ho wishes to irltervone publicly.

Appendix I photographs

I'hoto no. 1 M u p of A ~ n u l e r t l u m ,263 Prinsengracht Street, a b u s y place right in t h e very h e a r t of t h e city.

Aeriul view of Ltle I ~ u i l d i n g ut 263 t'rinsengrucht. A ~ I ~ I . ~ I I ~ I * . l ~ ~ ~I I~ I i l ~ l i ~ l j ~ ~ I ~ Lyl~i1:i11 01 L I I C IJIII A I I I ~ L C ~ C I I I I I I . It is s ~ ~ r r o ~ i ~11y 1)11iI(l- l i~l~*( ~ I I K ! I 01 1 1 1 1 1 ~ I I I I I I I .1~1119,I ~ I I V I~lc Irotri c!vc:rywhc:re, cul~cc'ii~lly fro111Lhc Lower I J Iltic. Wt!.rLt!rkirk c.hi~rt.t~. 1 . 'I'll(: W(:ult:rkirk c t ~ u r c l l 2. 'I'hc* "AIIII(: F ~ I I I I ~ I IIIIII(!" ( ~ ( ! I . I ! I I L (.or~:~lrt~(.1111. 2ti5 (will) ill)11c:x with 1)liick roof). 4 . I l o i ~ u c 2{i:l (with 11r1110. 11c.x with rctl roof): ~hc! " A n n e lq'runli 1lou.re." 5. l l o u s c no. 261 with u long r e d roof (without unn e x ) . Note how t h e h o u s e s of t h e neighborhoodcrowd a r o u n d n central g r e e n s p a c e : t h o A n n e Frank 1-Iouse a n d its "annex" w e r e exposed from all directions, r e g a r d l e s s of t h e trees.

L~IIII). :I. I Ioiisi:

I ' I l ~ l t O 110. :I A pholo of lilt: 263 I'rin?cc*r~~rr~c.hl AIIIIC*14'r1111k I I O I I S I ~ i11 l!)40 ( ~ I I I . I I ( I ( I100ki11go111 Ll1c1 (-11r1r1l; t11I11fl or1 I I O . 26 I IIII(I 111 1l1(* i ~ l ~ l , r no. 265). A five story I~orrsch of winclows" (willroul ~IlullersJ.
1 ,

I'lrolo 110.

d l

'1'111. I I I I I I I o f 2fKI 1'1 ~ I I ~ > I I -

{:rrlc.lll Slrc.t.1 ( I!J./2- 1 9 4 4 1 ) 111111 Ia'rt~nk Mr. prc-stb~~ts lo 11is r(bi~~I~*rs. li~cks [I I1 ground floor plan a s well a s any ir~dicationthat the rrpnc-o w11ic:ll H I * I ) I I ~ I I ~ CL~I H( ~ I fionl house from the nnncx i~II ~rn11l1 courlyrrrd, 3.7 meters in size, common to that house and to the house on the right. The eight persons lived in hiding in the nnnex. The four Prnnks urld L)usscl on the sccond floor, the ttircc V I I ~I)IIIIIIS 011 llre lhirtl. On the second floor, the tloor/cnpl)oard on the londing connected the house with the annex. This plan, lo which I've added, appears in all the editions of the Diary. It does not seem really to scale: the facade of the building is approx. 8 meters wide and the court only 3.7 meters. To have a view of the whole, put the three levels indicated here on top of one another and add to them, a t the first level, a ground floor, a n d a t the fifth level, some mansarded attics to which stairways D and F respectively lead.

1. OPEN

2. CLOSED

Photo no 5. The swinging cupboard (reconstruction) at the end of the corridor on the second floor, access to the annex coming from the front house. The photo from this post card should be compared with my Photo no. 8 which reveals thut the window looks courtyurci nntf thcit, througli tho glass of Lhitt window one .qc?c,.q, out on the sn~nll so~iiu iiicliev uwuy, tlic l~oily f tlic urincx 1)uilciing. It woulil lluvu I~cen o criough for the police to have been there in order to see that there wris un unncx.

206 Photos nos. 7-11 Five revealing photos. T h e neighbors on t h e right (265 Prinsengracht) could have easily seen and heard what took place a t 263 Prinsengracht. Photos 9 and 10 prove that they had seven openeings that looked out on no. 263.

Photo no. 7
1 . You are on the second

floor a t one of the two windows of the store looking out on the court. Note to the left of the downpipe the second window of the famous corridor and, a t its right, the wall of the "annex.

l ' 1 1 0 ~ ~t10. ti 1 2. You arc in the corriclor. Notc*, nt your Ic.fL, the

swinging cul~boardin the open position and, a t the right, through the window, the wall of tlie "Annex. * ,

I'hoto n o . !I :I. You arc o n the third

floor o n lllc corlrlc.clirl~ I.c.rrr~c.c~ 1)c:twcvw L l ~ c * "r~rlncsx" untl lhi. "fru111 house": n ) the first gable o n lhc~ c.ourt (111 yolrr rigl11) l)cblonC:.qLo the front nf the Arlnc* I*'rr~nk h o ~ ~ s ( s ; tl1(1 other is that of thc~neigh1)orinC: house (no. 255); 1)) from the srlme position but looking steeply down on the courtyard, you note six openings: the first, a t your right, belongs to the Anne Frrink t1ou.s~ nnd t h ~ five others lo the neighboring house (no. 265); c ) ndvl~r~cingon tcrrr~cch the you note above you the bell tower of the Westerkirk as well ns the "Anne Frank Home" (recent conslr~lc.tiorl).

Anne Frank

Photo no. 10 (3b)

Photo no. 11 (3c)

j6.C86 YUI3lJ '1m 18qM la? -9sm ou 'ssal uaAa jlasl! ,,xauuo,, aq? pun ' p a q o u u n auoB ahoy qou plno2, ,xauuo,, eq? JO s?u~?!ququ!a q ~ 'wa i(, ,lsaL a q l ~ sLop s ~ E ,1 ,Val aqq uo Lauw!q3 aql mo3J , o Bqds~sa ayours aql '(, ,ulal?nd pun &!ionb 'saduqs luaIaJj!p 118J O , , q~o13O sa2a!d J JO epww) 6u!vpn3 aqljo s2u!so1:, pun sZlu!uado aqq uaas Ll!sea aAnq pIno3 sloqqa!au aqJ, 'lq3sfislazs!ag 061 PUB lq3wfiuasu!ld ~ g 01 U O U I U I O ~uaaq s L u ~ l u o3uds z soq u e a a 7891 p m asnoH y u o l j a u u y aql q s s a x r , pooB slajjo uapi88 aqL .qaalls 1 q 3 s f i s ~ a q a guo Burppnq aqq jo loo3 aql urorj ucytq ma!A o :xauuo a q l j o aqL Z 1 'OU OlOqd

Anne Frank
Photos no 13 et n' 14
L)cuu spfciniens de IVcriture

urrributk i Anlie Frank

Photos nos. 13and 14 Two O X I I I I ~ I ) I O H of ~ 1 1 1 1 1 ~ ~ w 1111rit)lllit(l All110 Frtrnk. I f ono c-ltn i)c!liovo Ih(t~t1 rilili~ to dates, these two tuxts wuru writtun four ruonlhu upurt. Onu cun coillpuru sel)urutoly botli thu toxlv lliu~~isolvos thuir sig~luturos. ulid Thu firs1 tlocumunl iu lhu fucnilnilu of the opiyruph of tho 1)iury (Journul do Annu Frank), trunululud fro111Lhu Dulch I)y Tylia Caren and Suzanne Lombard, Culmnn-Levy, 1950. The second is the fncsimile of a text written by Anne Frank on the back of one of her photographs (Journal de Anne Frank), Livre d e Poche, D.L. The "adult" handwriting is about four months prior to the "childish" printing!

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Romanians a n d the Holocaust

Dr. SERBAN C. ANDRONESCU

(Presented at the 1981 Revisionist Conference) In the last d e c a d e , various stories a p p e a r e d in books a n d newspapers relating to the Holocaust in Romania. The authors of these stories pretended that Romanians killed almost half a million Jews in WW 11; they arrived at this figure in an awkward manner. Firstly, long before this campaign, in 1957, two scholars, one Romanian and the other Jew, met together and published a paper on this subject in Rome, Italy, in which the figure was 15,000, but not of Jews exterminated by the Romanians; it related to the Jewish casualties in Romania, which makes a big difference. The title of the p a p e r w a s Regional Development of the Jewish Population in Romania and the authors were Dr. Sabin Manuila, formerly General Director of the Institute for Statistics of Romania and Dr. W. Filderrnan, formerly President of the Jewish Community of Romania. In other words, one was a high level specialist in the very field of statistics and census, the other was the head of the minority that pretends today the above stated extermination. Furthermore, both authors had clualifications beyond the level stated above. Manuila was a Corresponding Member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the International Institute of Statistics. Filderman was a Rabbi, former Member of the Romanian Parliament, and President of the "Joint Distribution Committee" for Romania. In other words, both were intellectuals of a higher standard and knowledgeable, by their professions, in the development of the population in Romania. However, despite their scholarship, the figure set after

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their research work (15,000),was fully stretched in Jewish favor. I shall call this figure Stage I of denigration. They listed the largest figure mentioned in the statistical reports they made use of: for instance, if two reports came from the same village, one informing of 10 casualties and the other of 15, the researchers listed the largest figure, 15. Therefore, the real number of Jews who died in Romania in the war was between 10,000 and 15,000. Anyhow, after the publication of that paper, the two parties were more or less content with that figure, then they forgot about those tragic events, went back to their usual work, and the situation renioined calm during almost 20 years. Thon, suddenly, in tho nlid 70'9, tho figure rose abruptly to Stage I1 of denigration: 250,000 killings. Before long it rose again t o Stnge 111: 300.000 killings, a n d nrrived lately to Stage IV:
4 5 0 . W jows killotl by
I < o l ~ l ~ r ~ ~ iil l WsW uil

II!

I t should be stressed that these new figures have been publiulled by Ziorlists alone, without any contribution or investigation underwritten by the Romanians. While the documentation for Stage I is available to any researcher and can be checked for accuracy a t any time, the figures relating to Stages 11,111, and IV, had been set up without any official documentation. If some new evidence to support a figure other than 15,000 had been found somewhere, this new evidence would have been published in some official journal under the aegis of both parties, but nothing of this kind w a s published by a n authorized or specialized organization. In other words, it seems that the authors of the last three stages of denigration have changed the number of the dead by simply crossing out one figure and replacing it with another. According to this method, oven the last figure of 450,000 can be chnnged at n n y time. As a former Iiomanion, I was shocked when I first became ownro of tho socond stago of denigration. This was in the 70's and since then I have looked for whatever proofs they might have gotton. I found nothing but memories of old people, recollections of tragic war events, and declarations made in general terms which, under no circumstances, could be considered a s documents in support of such a grave and precise accusation a s the one charging the Romanians with the killing of 450,000 Jews. My secretary was in touch with Dr. Jean Ancel of Yad Vashem Archives. Mr. Ancel became a doctor with a dissertation on this very subject, The Romanian Jewry, in which he ranges himself in the Stage I11 of denigration. The university which conferred to him a doctoral degree for such a dissertation was the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. My secretary sent Dr. Ancel three letters asking for a n abstract of his dessertion and also for any available proof in support of his version of the events. The letters were sent to no avail. Dr. Ancel answered only one letter saying that

Romanians and the Holocaust

21 3

his figures are only approximate. However, Dr. Ancel is one of the specialists in the field of Romanian Jewry who can understand the importance of a proof when making such a grave statement. He refused to give any proof of his statements. With the others who a r e much under Ancel's level of education, it is useless to start any discussion because they become excited after the first question. In general, they consider that they and they alone possess the truth. Whatever view does not conform to their views is by definition a lie, immoral, anti-Semite, racist, a n d neo-Nazi. When these people write about those events, their writings a r e so full of vague and general statements t h a t it is almost impossible for the concerned r e a d e r not to suspect them of posing a s victims. Here is an example. Ms. Juliana Geran Pilon is a Jew born in Romnnin. Sho wroto n hook, Notos f r o m tho Othor Sido of tho Night, (South Bend, IN.: Regnery Gateway, 1979) in which she states (page 125) that "nearly 300,000 Jews had been killed in Romania before the Germans even got there!" When the Germans got there, Ms. Pilon says further, they killed 150,000 more. Now, in order to u n d e r s t a n d the absurdity of such a n allegation I should bring back to mind what happened in Romanin in 1940, the year when the Germans came. In recalling the history of those days I will use some data from a book written by an outstanding Zionist scholar, Professor Lucy Dawidowicz of Yeshiva University, NY. In her book, The War Against.Jews, (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1975) Ms. Dawidowicz declares that there were 750,000 Jews in pre-war Romania, of which 300,000 lived in Bessarabia and 150,000 in Northern 'I'ransylvania. 'rhea0 two provincus Bosaarabiu and Northern Transylvania, had been lost by Romania in August 1940 under the pro-Jewish regime o f King Cnrol 11, whon organized killing of Jews was impossible. The loss of the national territory put a shameful end to the corrupt regime of King Cerol who was obliged to abdicate. He was chased from Romonin together with his Jewish lover, Ms. Magda Wolf-Lupescu, his mentor a n d counsellor. In September 1940, King Carol's pro-Jewish regime was replaced with the nationalist regime of General Antonescu and in November 1940 the German troops entered Romania. This is the period r e f e r r e d to by Ms. Pilon when s h e writes t h a t Romanians and Germans killed altogether 450,000 Jews. This could only happen under Antonescu, not, of course, under Carol. Now, by simple subtraction, if we deduct 450,000 (300,000 Jews of Bessarabia plus 150,000 of Northern Transylvania) from the total Jewish population of about 750,00, we can see that nationalist Romania (i.e. Romania from 1940 to the end of the war, 1944) h a d only 300,000 Jews. It w a s therefore impossible for the Germans and Romanians to kill 450,000 Jews out of 300,000.

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But there is more than that in Ms. Pilon's story. First, let's see how Romanians could kill 300,000Jews before the Germans even got there, a s Ms. Pilon proclaims. Under King Carol it was impossible to organize any action against the Jews simply because they were at the control of the administration through Ms. Magda Wolf-Lupescu, the king's lover. She had complete dominion over the king because of some unique sexual peculiarities, tlie description of which would be unfit for this report. In fact, she was the uncrowned queen of Romania and riotl~irigcorlltl t c t ko plcico i r l Ilit1 t coilntry witliout her permission. In proof o f Illis ftlct w t i s thc? wild crusliirlg of n Christi~nand ~icllio~iulist 1riovo11101ll(Ilio 11-or1Guurd) i r i 19313, wlien soveral thor~srlncl yorlngstors nnrl st11r1o~11s boon killed without trinl or hnd jut1ic:iul pl*oc:uclrll*uu.rli~ill)ly 1~(!(:~11s0 ~ I I Y C )~lgtii~lst l ~ Llloy t l Jewis11 iilfllloric:o, 111~1c:orrrtpIio~l.1110 cloc:ny, nnd tllo abuses perpetrnted i l l 11ios(: [Itiys i l l 11rilI C O U I I I ~ ~ . I ~ ~ ~rilurdor of Jews would '1'110 I Y S Iinvo o ~ i l ybuen possibla under tlie n~tio~lolist regime of General Antonescu which took over in Romania in September 1940. According to Ms. Pilon, the Romanians killed 300,000 J e w s "before the Germans even got there," i.e. between September 1940 (advent of the nationalist regime) a n d November 1940 (German troops enter Romania), that is, in two months. Now, could tliis be possible? Can one kill 300,000 people a n d then evaporate tlie corpses? Of course, not. One has to put the corpses somewhere. One has to dig a grave for them and a grave of this size cannot remain hidden forever. No grove of tliis size or smnllor lins y e t I~aen cliscovorcd in Romanin. There Rre hundreds of Jewish cemeteries in Romania, but all are standard cemeteries, the people buried there died of natural or nccidental death. In contrast, there are thousands of cemeteries of Romanian w a r heroes. T h e r e is even a n American hero cemetery n e a r Bucharest, on the same spot with a British hero cemetery. There are thousands of such graves all over Europe, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic Ocean to Stalingrad. In Poland, it is impossible to cross one single district without coming upon a cemetery of Polish heroes. There a r e cemeteries of Jews, too, and even monuments. There are no such monuments or mausoleums for Jews in Romania, although Romania is the only communist country that has diplomatic relations with Israel. Moreover, Romania depends on the proZionist votes of many American senators to get the Most Favored Nation clause. It would have been very easy for those influential American senators to cause President Ceausescu to erect a Jewish monument in Romania. However, neither American senaiors, nor Israelis have asked thus far for the erection of such a monument. The rationale? The Jews died in Romania because of various casualties inherent to any war, but not because of atrocities.

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21 5

When 15,000 Polish officers and soldiers were killed at Katyn, the killers dug a huge grave and put the corpses there. If you went there a t the time when the place was open for the public you could see the material proofs of what happened. You could see bones and skeletons and pieces of Polish uniforms and shoes and letters and photographs [damaged by the humidity of the soil) which were found in the pockets of the uniforms and even the bullets used in those killings. It had been impossible to hide 15,000 corpses; it had not been a matter of 15,000 matches or 15,000 pebbles; it had been a matter of 15,000 human bodies whose traces remain year after year after year. How could Romanians kill 300,000 Jews without leaving a trace? How could they hide almost half a million corpses, 30 times more than those of Katyn? Who can believe that Rabbi Dr. W. Filderman, the leader of Romanian Jews in WW 11, was so indifferent as to leave unexplored a mass murder of such proportion if the least suspicion ever existed? He was far from being indifferent. He simply never even considered the possibility of a mass murder of Jews in Romania and therefore, being an honest Romanian Jew, signed a paper in which lie put tho largest numbor of dead at 15,000. But let's analyze the socond part of Ms. Pilon's ossortion, that the Germans killed 150,000Jews nfter they entored Romanitl. This again was impossible simply because at the end of the war the number of the Jews was a s high a s at tho beginning of tho war, i.e. in round figures about 300,000. This figure included the natural incrouso of the Jowisli population during tho war and of course did not comprise the dead from war casualties and those who emigrated clandestinely. There were still two possibilities of killing Romanian Jews, one in Bessarabia (occupied by the Soviet Union) and the other in Northern Transylvania (occupied by the Hungarians). Niether one actually happened. When the Romanian Troops entered Bessarabia in 1941 and reconquered that territory, very few Jews were found there. The majority had been either evacuated by the Soviets or had left by themselves in fear of reprisals. Many Jews had a criminal attitude toward the Romanians in retreat in 1940 when Bessarabia was ceded to Russia; they had gathered in armed bands and killed or disarmed many Romanian soldiers who h a d o r d e r s to retire without shooting. Therefore, in 1941, when the Romanians reconquered that territory, the Jews had already left in fear of reprisals. As fpr the Jews of Northern Transylvania (occupied by Hungary) they had been put in camps by the Hungarians and very few returned after the war. From the 300,000 Jews who were still in Romania after the war, about 130,000 emigrated to Israel (see the Statistical Bulletin of Israel, vol. 3, 1952-53) and about 140,000 to Western Europe and

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USA. There a r e still between 35,000 and 50,000 Jews in Romania today. This is what remains, after analysis, of Ms. Pilon's imaginary charges. She is, however, considered a scholar in the U.S.A. and an expert in interpreting historical events. She has been recently promoted to the post of Assistant to Mr. Burton Pines, t h e Director of the United Nations Assessment Project, sponsored by the Heritage Foundation of Washington, DC. The purpose of this project is to condemn the United Nations Organization. When this organization w a s dominated by the Zionists, it w a s a good organization; but today, after the expulsion of Israel from the U.N.'s International Labor Organization and the condemnation of Israel for her attitude toward Arabs, U.N.O. is a bad organization and should be dissolved. The suspicion of mass m u r d e r s in Romania never existed before the 70's. All the humbug started in the 70's with articles in newspapers and books charging Romanians with the extermination of the Romanian Jewish population, but it was too late in the 70's, 30 years after the end of the war, to organize extermination camps in Romania in proof of mass murders. First, there nppeored various ~ t t a c k s small newspapers charging Romania in wit11 tlio k i l l i ~ ~ g 250,000 Jows. Nobody protostod. Arid tllon a big of article was published by the New York Post, a newspaper of large circulation. A map was distributed by the Anti-Defamation League and the number of the alleged killings rose instantly to 300,000. 'The article and the map were givon out in millions of copies. The mop was published on the front page of a pamphlet ancl showed Europe and her different countries, each one with the amount of Jewish victims. Printed over Germany the accusation figure was 210,000. Over Romania, the figure was 300,000. Always on that map only the Jews were shown a s victims. The text accompanying the map read clearly: 6,000,000 Jewish victims in total. No other victims. However, if one took the time to add up the figures printed on the t map, they would have arrived a t a total of less than 6,000,000. It was therefore necessary to find somewhere another 150,000 victims to match the total of six million. The missing amount of victims was attributed to Romania. So there appeared the Stage IV of denigration, charging Romania with the killing of 450,000 Jews. Another newspaper of l a r g e circulation, the Spectator of London, published the new figure in 1979. L'Express of Paris, a magazine of even larger circulation, published the same figure. This was because all these major newspapers of the United States, England and France were independent and arrived a t the same precise conclusion, 450,000 victims, by mere coincidence. Meanwhile, a spurious campaign against the Romanian Bishop

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217

of the U.S.A., Valerian D. Trifa, began with much' noise a n d excitement a n d w a s conducted by Representative Elizabeth Holtzman, a Democrat of Brooklyn. Howard Blum, who was a t t h a t time on the staff of the pro-Zionist n e w s p a p e r s Village Voice and New York Times, edited a book aggressively titled Wanted: In Search of Nazis in America, charging Romania with the same figure. Many radio and TV programs were aired at about the same time whose slogan was more or less the same: Romanians murdered 450,000 Jews. Now, you a r e entitled to ask-why this sudden campaignagainst Romania after 30 years of silence? T ~ missing 150,000 from the H worldwide publicized figure of 6 million did not justify such a virulent campaign. There must have been some other reason, perhaps monetary. This possibility deserves some attention. Since the inaugurntion of tho stnte of Isrnol in 1948, tho Gorman tax-payer h a s contributed to the wolfars of Israel with a n expiatory payment of fibout two billion dollars annually. In the last 30 years, the German contribution has amounted to over 60 billion dollars. During this same period the American taxpayer has contributed with friendly loans and endowments to Israel of a similar or bigger amount. Now, after 30 years of payments to Israel, expiatory or friendly, of about 4 billion dollars yearly, the taxpayer may get suspicious-mainly when we Americans cannot find funds for stringent national or local needs. In New York, for instance, the subway is a mess; the westside highway is closed because of its many potholes; public schools a r e a mockery because there a r e no funds to invest in education, and thousands of New-Yorkereare living in incredible conditions because the rent in.New York is so high. I-Iowever, thero oro illways somo billions to be sent to Israel for various purposes. But if the American taxpayer becomes aware of these many oxponditures abroad, he may ask them to be stopped. It is therefore necessary for the Zionists to find new sources of incoming dollars or at least to preserve the existing ones. A denigration campaign against all European countries could very well serve this purpose; thus Romania was included in the campaign. One never can tell just how and when this inclusion has become fruitful. It is true that many Jews were killed in Romania in the war; but also many Romanians, a n d Americans, a n d Germans, a n d Russians were killed in Romania a t that time, a s well as many other peoples. As w e all know, w h a t c h a r a c t e r i z e s a w a r is cruelty and killing; killing not only by weapons, but by diseases too; by hunger, or simply by accidents. Soldiers and civilians, women and children, elders and youngsters, a r e killed in any war for many, many reasons, good or bad. Would it be fair if I made the chronicle of the war and complained of the tragic fate of one group only?

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Let me put things an other way. I saw piles of corpses in that war. I saw a street full of corpses; various parts of bodies were spread over that street after a bombardment-feet, heads, hands a n d blood. I remember a pile of broken feet a n d a r m s on a sidewalk, a horrible pile. Who could tell what part belonged to whom in that pile? Who could tell what foot was Jewish, what arm Romanian, and what part of a body German? Nobody. But it would be a n impiety to proclaim today that all those killed on that street were all Romanians and complain of the tragic fate of Romanians only. Moreover, if I recall those times, what difference does it make whether 10,000Russians were killed in an airstrike in Kiev, a city of Ukraine, or 10,000 Jews were killed in Transnistria because of typhus or hunger? W h a t is t h e difference between 100,000 Germans killed at Stalingrad because of the freezing winter and hunger and 1,000 Russian Jews hanged in Odessa a s guerillas? Whut dilToro~lco tlloro botweon sever81 hundreds of thousands is of Romanian soldiers killed in Russia in the war and several thousands of Jews killed in Iasi, a city of Romania, because they shot to d e a t h Romanian soldiers? W a r is a madness in itself because the intelligent people of both sides cannot find other ways to settle their disputes. However, when the war and its horrors arrive a t an end, a peace treaty is signed, debts are payed, borders a r e changed, a n d then we forget about it. Otherwise we would never finish a war. Not so with the Zionists. After 30 years they start another war-a war of words, and libels, arid revenge, inlplying the Jews were the sole victims of the last war. The social life in prewar Romania under the pro-Jewish regime of King Carol was much like the social life in this country, almost the same decoy. Pornography, adultery, blasphemy and all kinds of wicked attacks against Christianity were flourishing all over Romania. It happened that the two most influential newspapers, Adeverul and Dimineata, were under Jewish management and were the advocates of communism, the agents of demoralization among the youth, and the most powerful fighters against nationalism. Many Jews were law-abiding citizens, but it happened that the mistress of the king was a beautiful but vicious Jewish woman, Magda Wolf-Lupescu. Many political killings were perpetrated in Romania because of her bad influence upon the king. Of course, she never signed the actual order to kill, but the fact was that all nationalist activities and mainly those directed against the social decay, against the literature of filth, and against the stong Jewish influence in politics were prohibited and even punished. A youth movement against atheists, pornographers, and corrupt politicians omerged (cnlled the Iron Guard) and it wanted to defend

Romanians and the Holocaust

21 9

national values against the intruders and the agents of deception. In fact, the Iron Guard was fighting against all the agents of decay, whoever they might be. Many Jews were decent citizens and contributed to the advancement of culture, but some were the agents of decay; so, those students who fought against the latter w e r e believed to fight against all J e w s a n d the press ostracized them. Some students who belonged to the Iron Guard in Iasi decided to build a student home, a Christian house for themselves, apart from the atheist student homes which existed at that time in I a ~ i . Well, the police of Iasi received the order to stop the building and all the Zionist newspapers began a vicious campaign against the Christian students. The charge was the same a s today in this country: "they wanted to destroy the pluralism of Romania, they threatened to kill those who disagreed with their authoritarian position, they wanted to deny values in the name of Christianity, they wore racists und usvurrlotl tllo rig111 to tlivido tllo country in the name of patriotism." In the opinion of many a t that time, the Christian students had the same right to build their Christian house a s the other students to have profane homes. However, the government was of another opinion. The government decided the students did not have that right and the chief of the police was sent on the spot to stop the building a n d disperse the students. Many students w e r e harrassed, some were arrested and some were summoned to court for the crime of trying to build a Christian home. It was like today in this country: if some youngsters adhere to a Christian movement, they a r e considered sick, they must be deprogrammed and bills are sent to the legislators to curb them. from schools nnd replciced with sex education. Prayer is o u t l ~ w e d Christmtis ctlrols c~ro c:onsitlorotl t l i s l ~ ~ r l ~ i~~yl g t cortclin minorities. In contrast, the use of drugs, pornogrupliy and incest, sodomy and atheism, are presented by the influential mass media a s acceptable standards of our culture, and all deceiving movements a r e free to spread inuniversities. Why? Because a depraved youth c a n be easily manoevered. Depraved students today mean depraved leaders tomorrow; thus, a better opportunity for those who pull the strings today to take over tomorrow. The same situation w a s in Romania a n d the agents who provoked that vicious situation in prewar Romania were the same as here. The students who wanted to stop the decay in Romania were sent to Court, the walls of their homes demolished, their families harassed-the newspapers cursed them. Many of those innocent students were barrod from universities, sent to jail and their lives were spoiled forever. Years later, when the pro-Jewish regime of King Carol was replaced with a nationalist one, the students took revenge on those who spoiled their lives and killed

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them. I do not approve of their actions even if I understand why they lost their h e a d s a n d killed. My religion a n d theirs does not approve any murder, even if it is done in revenge. W e r e the students guilty of the killings? Of course, they were; but, a t the same timi, those who persecuted them were guilty as well. However, the chroniclers of those events speak of the guilt of the students only, mnking the reader believe the persecutors were not guilty, and the same events take place in almost the silmo wgly in our dnys ns half EI century ago in Romania. There is nonsonso in conconling tlio real moaning of the social movements c ~ r ~ r l) r o v o ~~)ooplo r o ~ t idrnwirig conclusions. Iiistory ropeats ~ il f itself whether we liko it or not. This is in essence a very broad tlr?sc:ription of some tlio~isc~nd killings perpotreted in Romania in 1940-41, Oll~c!r killillgs WCI'C! CIUC L ulllt31*C:HUSOS. o I W H A n lligli s(:Iiool sttidont n t that time. My father was R lawyer, i l l l r l i n 1941 lie ]led to go to lusi for some legal affairs. He took mc with him to show m e the city. It was a city of: .portance in Komanian history and a visit there was considerea part of a t)oy's cclucation, It w a s soon after tho beginning of the hostilities between Romania and communist Russia. We took a room a t a hotel in Iasi. I remember very well that on the street facing the window of our room there marched long columns of soldiers, r.:irts with hnrscs, trucks with military equipment going to the war frorit. The street was ritlrrow and the columns very long. It was soon n f t n r S U I I S C ~ .My fnther and I were preparing for dinner when suddenly we heard explosions down in the street. We went c : i ~ r l l i o ~ ~ s l yI l i o wiriclow nnd lookod outsicle. We snw people in lo Ill(: I ~ u i l c l i l l g cic:ross tlio strctot s h o o t i r ~ g t the soldiers; some n olliors worc? Illrowilig grcnndos from tho roof. It W R S H crazy act in those d a y s and w h a t happened then w a s hell. An officer ordered the march to stop and the soldiers to surround the block. In a short while, the whole block was in flames and under the fire of submachine guns. Then the march resumed and continued through midnight. We learned that those who fired at the soldiers from the other building were Romanian Jews acting a s communist guerillas. Several hundred people w e r e killed t h a t evening, Romanian soldiers a s well a s Jewish guerillas, together with innocent people who lived in that block. Who was guilty of those killings? We were a t war and there was no time to sit down and decide who was and who was not guilty. Something similar happened a few months ago, in July 1981, when Israeli planes killed 300 people in Beirut; among those killed wero a few PLO guerrillas, but the majority w e r e civilians. Similar things happened several times in Iasi in those days of war when the Romanian Jews decided not to allow the Romanian army to go against their beloved Soviet Union. They were Romanian

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221

citizens, but many were communist first and then Romanian. When my father finished his work in Iasi, we tried to go back to Bucharest, but we couldn't because the railway station had been bombed. In that bombing many people were killed, Romanians a s well a s Jews. Should I say that the pilot who dropped the bombs was anti-Semitic because he killed some Jews? We stayed in Iasi several days until the station was fixed. During our sojourn there we learned of some other events. Jewish groups had organized underground communist cell structures, accumulated weapons and ammunition, fought a s guerillas, and attacked the army of their country, Romania. They fought against the Romanian army not only in Iasi, but in many other cities. If reprisals w e r e initiated against them, w e r e the Romanians guilty? A quarter of the city of Iasi was Jewish and the Jews lived in an area called "the Ghetto." They installed red electric bulbs in the chimneys of their houses, thus signaling to Russian planes when the blackout was on. From the street, the red light of the bulbs was invisible, but it was perfectly visible from above. So, when Soviet planes came at night, they knew where the city was and what area of tilo city to bomb. 'Tho Ghotto was never bombud, it miraculous thing until tho police discoverotl the trick. Reprisals against the Jews were carried aut again, and the question again arises: were the Romanian police guilty of the reprisals? Dr. W. Fildorrnnn muntions in his Mernoirs n lotter dated 18 September 1940 (a few weeks after the nationalist regime took over in Bucharest) from Gonoral Antonescu in which the chief of be assured, Mr. Filderman, ( . . ) that, if your state wrote: " co-religionists will not sabotage openly or furtively my regime on political or economic grounds, the Jewish population will have nothing to suffer ( . . . ). But the Jews-and I call your attention seriously to this matter without threatening you-the Jews must give up the methods they've used thus far (because this was the way of the former regime) of keeping down our economy, sapping our national identity, and exploiting our poverty." It was a dialogue between the chief of state and the president of the Jewish communities soon after the inauguration of tho nationalist regime in which the chief of s t a t e expressed his willingness to help the Jews, under the curcumstances, and asked the Jews to hold back from any acts of sabotage and diversion in order to avoid restrictive measures against them. However, the instructions to sabotage, spy, and divert came from far above Dr. Filderman's sphere: moreover, not all the Jews who populated Romania a t that time were under Dr. Filderman's authority. The confrontation in World War I1 was of such a high level that the lives of some thousands of Jews and Romanians did not count. As a consequence, the Jews spied and the administration deported

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them to Transnistria. There were no hospitals there, food was scarce, the cities were in ruins, a n d many Jews who had been deported there died of different diseases and perhaps of hunger, much like today's Arabs who a r e chased into the desert from Polestino. Tho Russians who lived in Transnistria had the same fate, but I cannot confirm that they died because of Romanian anti-Russionism. Food nnd medicine were scarce everywhere in those days. Tens of thousands of Germans died a t Stalingrad because of hunger and frost. In Bucharest we had no food, no g a s , no medicine, a n d the c a s u a l t i e s w e r e numerous. All minorities a s well a s Romanians themselves s u f f e r e d heavy casualties. W e all took the situation a s it w a s and buried the dead, even the Jews. IIowever, after several decades, only the Jews recollect those events and complain to the world for their sufferings. General Antonescu not only maintained a dialogue with the Jewish community, he even dismissed his Secretary of Cults, who closed some synagogues. This f a c t i s a l s o mentioned in Dr. Fildermc~n's Memoirs. However, General Antonescu was labeled an onti-Semite and executed after the war. Miiriy fool 11up1)yto Irtl~cl Iiorriclnici~~s S ii~iti-Sornites.Ms. LI Nicolette Frank, for instance, a Swiss newspaperwoman who wns born in Iiomnnin ns Nicolotte Apotocker, edited a book in French, in 1977, La Houmanie duns I'engrenage (Romania in the Gooring]. I'o t l i o ordinnry lib01 ngninst hor former country, Ms. Fronk adds trnother which I i ~ s double advnntage of striking the a t liomtrrliaris a s well us ot Cliristiuriity: s h e s a y s t h a t t h e Romanii~nOrthodox Church is the ferment of nationalism a n d anti-Semitism in Romania. H o w e v e r , s h e h a s t h e d e c e n c y to mention something true: Adolph Eichman complained a t one time of his difficulties in Romania because of General Antonescu's . i n d e p e n d e n t policies. Acting upon t h e i r own lines is i n d e e d charactoris tic of Iiomnniuns onti explai~iswhy their alliances - have always been limited to needs. Hitler's Germany was very powerful in WW 11. However, General Antonescu did not accept German interferrence in Romanian affairs. Today the Zionists ore very powerful too, but few Romanians can accept their libel. One of these libels is that Romanians imitated Hitler's policies. In fucl, Hor~~clrlirlris c:urbocl Jowisl~ r~ctivitiosduring tho w a r not to imitate G e r m a n policies, but b e c a u s e t h e J e w s w e r e more commu~listthan Romanian a t a time when Romania was a t w a r with the Soviet Union. To curb the Jews, Romania did the same thing that the United States did against her Japanese: she put them in camps. While in camps, the Jews had to work. In winter, they had to shovel the snow off of the streets. Sometimes they were sent to clean

Romanians and the Holocaust

buildings or to remove debris. At night, they went home a n d stayed with their families until the next day. Our bread, meat butter and coffee were rationed. The Jews had no ration cards, so they organized their own food system using the free a n d black markets. They had to pay higher prices for food, i t was true, but it was to their advantage: it was better to live that way than to die on the w a r front. They thus saved their lives a t a time when hundreds of thousands of Romanians lost their lives in Russia. As I mentioned before, 1 w a s a high school boy a t the beginning of tho war. One dny, the t)n~~lovnrd front of my school wns full in of Jews who shoveled the snow away. I t was cold tinri they haci s l i g l \ t I I I C I L I I I S o f w~ir111i11gI O I I ~ S ~ I V ~ I S . MII11y ~1101)sI l l i [ ~ II OI I boulevard were closed a n d those which were open were almost empty of food. But soon some wives and girls came over with thermos flasks of hot coffee, tea and snacks a n d nobody prevented them from distributing the food rimong the workers. They stopped their work, a t e and drank, and then began their work again. When I finished my school that day and went home, there were no Jews on that boulevard; they went home, too. This was a secalled labor camp for Jows that I saw with my own oyes. T h e r e w e r e p r o b a b l y o t h e r c a m p s w h e r e t h e work w a s harsher, but tho Zionists spuuk today ubout tlie luttor o~lly, and never about the former. This is why their complaints appear doubtful to the concerned reader. If they were sincere, they would mention all aspects of their tribulations, good or bad, not only those which can be bargained for dollars.

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About the Contributors

Dr. ROBERT FAURISSON was born at Shepperton, near London, in

1929, to a Froncli fa tlier and n Scottish mother. He was educated in Sing-

apore, Japan,Marseille, and inParis at the Sorbonne, where he received his doctorato in 1972. After a short spell teaching at the Sorbonne. Professor Faurisson became Associate Professor in French Literature at the University of Lyon-2 in central France. M specializes in the appraisal e and evaluation of texts and documents. 1 SAMUEL EDWARD KONKIN 1 1 was raised in Edmonton, Canada. He gained his B.Sc. (Hons.) in Theoretical Chemistry at University of Alberta in 1968. He also found time to be Campus Chairman of the university chapter of the Social Credit Party. After moving to New York City, he gained his M.A. in 1973 from New York University, and was a Ph.D. candidate in 1975.He later moved to southern California, where he now publishes his own magazine New Libertarian, and is co-ordinator of the Movement of the Libertarian Left. When not involved in left-libertarian publishing, the author finds time to engage in science fiction.
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Dr. CHARLES E. WEBER is professor of German in the University of Tulsa's Faculty of Letters. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati in 1954. Along with his literary, linguistic and historical -studies, Dr. Weber takes a keen interest in numismatics and freemarket economics and has been published extensively on these subjects. Dr. SERBAN C. ANDRONESCU was born in Bucharest, Romania. He holds a doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris and a doctorate in philosophy from the City University of New York. He has taught a t several American colleges and is presently the director of the ~ m e r i c a n Institute for Writing Research. On his list of publications a r e more than 40 books, articles and essays. Dr. MARTIN A. LARSON was born in Whitehall, Michigan in 1897 and received his Ph.D. a t the University of Michigan in 1927. All his life Dr. Larson has taken a keen interest in comparative religions, taxation and the monetary system. As recently as 1980 he published The Essene Christian Faith, one of over 20 published books he has to his credit. He makes his home with his wife in Arizona.